•ECONO COPY, 
I8«t. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelf..HX-l(5 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



THE 



STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS 



SOCIALISM 



BY 



RICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D., LL.D. 

Professor of Political Economy and Director of the School of 

Economics, Political Science, and History in 

the University of Wisconsin 




New York CLEVELAND Chicago 

2Cf)e Cf)autauqua ^resg 






38736 



Copyright 1894 ^"^ 'S99 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company 



rwoto»\wn ^gc;:ivEo. 




vi y^xxxa Vo \^^ ^ 



PEEFAOE. 



Dr. Rudolf Meyer, a conservative German author, 
published a work some twenty years ago entitled " The 
Struggle of the Fourth Estate for Emancipation." By 
the " Fourth Estate " he of course meant the wage-earn- 
ing classes. At that time Dr. Meyer entertained the 
hope that the acceptance of a program of social re- 
form would be sufficient to save Germany from social 
democracy. Germany, however, was not ready to go so 
far as Dr. Meyer recommended, and the growth of Social 
democracy was in no wise impeded. Germany has done 
much to improve the conditions of the masses, but she 
has always moved so late that the m^^ses have received 
the impression that the action was forced by fear, and 
did not proceed from a real, sincere desire to benefit the 
less fortunate portions of the community, especially the 
wage-earning population. Dr. Meyer has just published 
another book, entitled " Capitalism, fin de siecleJ^ Dr. 
Meyer maintains that it is now too late for Germany 
to adopt the program of reform which he urged twenty 

V 



VI PREFACE, 

years ago ; and he considers it essential that the public 
authorities should come to at least a temporary agree- 
ment with social democracy, and thus work together for 
the salvation of Germany from impending perils. He 
apprehends that Germany must make a choice between 
state socialism and social democracy, and he fears that 
social democracy may carry the day. 

The United States has now the opportunity which 
Germany had twenty years ago. It is not by any means 
too late for us to escape the situation in which Germany 
finds herself. However it may be in Germany, the policy 
of social reform is still practicable among us; but we 
must always bear in mind the high ideals which social- 
ism has placed before the masses of the people, and 
,which they have absorbed. Timid, half-way measures 
will not stem the tide of socialism. 

What are the prospects of this reform which can give 
us the benefits of peaceful and uninterrupted progress ? 
It is not altogether easy — in fact, it is always difficult — 
to forecast the future. There is probably no country in 
which more violent, bitter, and even unprincipled ex- 
tremes may be found. We have, on the one hand, the 
anarchists of the poor, who aim to arouse bitterness and 
hatred, and who shrink from no exercise of force, pro- 
vided they think that thereby they can accomplish their 



PBEFACE, vil' 

ends. With them, the torch and the dynamite bomb are 
questions of expediency. 

We have, on the other hand, a class of men who advo- 
cate the claims of wealth in precisely the same spirit. 
Every proposal of reform is greeted by them with ridi- 
cule and misrepresentation ; every advocate of changes, 
even in accordance with constitutional and legal means, 
is villified. These fanatics have precisely the same spirit 
which animates the anarchists. They would not hesitate 
to use force to maintain existing privileges, and they 
would rejoice to see anything like a socialistic recon- 
struction of society prevented, by torturing and putting 
to violent death the advocates of socialism. It is the 
old spirit which has ever greeted the reformer who has 
advocated changes in behalf of the masses with the cry, 
^^ Crucify him ! crucify him ! '^ Most fortunately, there 
is, between these two extreme factions, each of them 
apparently quite small, a large class of fair-minded, well- 
meaning men and women, who are the hope of the 
country. America has been called the land of the 
" almighty dollar," and it has been supposed to be dom- 
inated exclusively by a narrow mercantilism ; yet one 
frequently meets, among the business leaders of the 
country, with a certain broad-mindedness which is as 
delightful as it is reassuring. Men of this class are men 



Vlll PREFACE. 

who will favor mutual concessions and a conciliatory 
policy. 

This book has been written in a conservative spirit. It 
cannot be understood unless the reader bears in mind that 
its standpoint is that of conservatism. The peaceful 
progress of society, with the conservation of the results 
of past historical development, is the author's desire. He 
will not, however, be surprised to have the charge of rad- 
cialism brought against him. We have among us a class 
of mammon worshippers, whose one test of conservatism, 
or radicalism, is the attitude which one takes with re- 
spect to accumulated wealth. Whatever tends to the 
preservation of the wealth of the wealthy is called con- 
servatism, and whatever favors anything else, no matter 
what, they call socialism. A writer's whole nature may 
be that of a conservative ; he may love the old ways ; he 
may to some extent draw his social ideals from a past 
which he considers, with respect to its feeling about 
wealth, saner than the present age, and yet, because he 
would, by social action, endeavor to change certain ten- 
dencies, and to conserve the treasures of the past which 
he feels threatened by new and startling forces, he is 
still a radical in the eyes of those men whose one and 
sole test is money. 

The socialist, as well as the non-socialist reader of this 



PREFACE, IX 

book, must clearly understand that the socialism which 
is described in its pages is not that of any one school. 
Many a socialist will take up this book and find missing 
in it that which he considers essential. What the author 
tries to do, however, is to give what seems to him the 
true essence of socialism as an industrial system. He 
has studied carefully the writings of various socialists, 
and has stripped off from socialism, as frequently pre- 
sented, those accessories which it seems to him are no 
part of it. He has given that presentation of socialism 
which seems to him to contain the greatest strength. 

The author desires to express his gratitude to many 
persons who have most kindly g:iven him assistance of 
one kind and another. Valuable suggestions and im- 
portant material have been sent him from different 
countries, and personal friends have read the proofs. 
Particular acknowledgment must be made to the fol- 
lowing : Prof. William A. Scott, the author's colleague in 
the University of Wisconsin ; Mr. Charles Zeublin, of the 
• University of Chicago ; Prof. John R. Commons, of the 
University of Indiana ; Sidney Webb, Esq., and Edward 
R. Pease, Esq., of the Fabian Society ; H. W. Lee, Esq., 
secretary of the Social Democratic Federation of Eng- 
land ; Geoffrey Drage, Esq., of London, secretary of the 
Royal Commission on Labor ; Dr. Heinrich Brauu, of 



X PRE FA CE. 

Berlin, Editor of the Archiv fur sociale Gesetzgehung und 
Statistik ; Professor Eaphael-Georges Levy, Baron Pierre 
de Coubertin, and Theodore Marburg, Esq., all of Paris ; 
Prof. Charles Gide, of Montpellier, France ; Dr. Daniel 
De Leon, and Lucien Sanial, Esq., of New York ; Sylves- 
ter Baxter, Esq., of Boston; A. G. Fradenbiirg, Esq., 
A. M. Simons, Esq., and Paul Tyner, Esq., all advanced 
students of the author's classes in the University of 
Wisconsin. 

The author must make special mention of two 
friends who have given him assistance, unusual both 
with respect to quantity and quality. These are Prof. 
David Kinley, of the University of Illinois, who has 
read the manuscript and proofs with great care, and 
made many helpful suggestions, and Mrs. Helen Frances 
Bates, a graduate student of the University of Wiscon- 
sin, who has rendered him efficient assistance, particu- 
larly in the preparation of the bibliography. 

University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 
April 25, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface * v 

PART I. THE NATURE OF SOCIALISM. 

CHAPTER 

I. Socialism in a more General Sense Distinguished 

from Socialism in a Narrower Sense 3 

II. The Elements of Socialism 9 

III. Definitions of Socialism 19 

IV. The Socialistic State 29 

V Some Misapprehensions Concerning the Nature of 

Socialism 37 

VI. The Origin of Socialism 50 

VII. The Progress of Socialism 56 

VIII. The Evidences of an Alleged Irresistible Current of 

Socialism 73 

IX. Socialism Contrasted with other Schemes of Indus- 
trial Change , 85 

X. The Literature of Socialism 96 

PART II. THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 

CHAPTER 

I. Introductory Remarks 113 

II. The Strength of Socialism as a Scheme of Production 116 

III. The Strength of Socialism as a Scheme for the Dis- 

tribution and Consumption of Wealth 138 

IV. The Moral Strength of Socialism 145 

V. Socialism as a Promoter of Art 157 

VI. Socialism and Present Problems 162 

VII. Services which the Agitation of Socialism has Ren- 
dered 166 

xi 



xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART III. THE WEAKNESS OF SOCIALISM. 

CHAPTER PAQB 

I. Introductory 175 

II. Alleged, but not Valid, Objections to Socialism . . 181 

III. Socialism too Optimistic with Respect to the Future, 

and too Pessimistic with Respect to the Present . . 188 

IV. The Danger of the Domination of a Single Industrial 

Principle, and of the Inevitable Concentration of 

Dissatisfaction under Socialism 197 

V. Socialism a Menace to Liberty 206 

VI. Objections to Socialism as a Scheme of Production . 215 
VII. Objections to Socialism as a Scheme of Distribution 

and of Consumption 233 

VIII. Other Objections to Socialism 244 



APPENDIX. 

Suggestions for Social Reform . . 253 



PART I. 

THE NATURE OF SOCIALISM. 



SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 



CHAPTER I. 

SOCIALISM IN A MORE GENERAL SENSE DISTINGUISHED 
FROM SOCIALISM IN A NARROWER SENSE. 

The word socialism, which has come into use in the 
present century, has already acquired a variety of mean- 
ings. It seems necessary to any clear thought that we 
should, first of all, distinguish between socialism in a 
large but not altogether vague sense, and socialism in 
a more technicpJ and more precise sense. Socialism in 
this large sense frequently has reference, in a general way, 
to the views and aspirations of those who hold that the 
individual should subordinate himself to society, main- 
taining that thus alone can the welfare of all be secured. 
Socialism in this more general sense implies the rejec- 
tion of the doctrine of selfishness as a sufficient social force 
and the affirmation of altruism as a principle of social 
action. Socialism, in this broad sense of the word, means 
that society is not a mere aggregation of individuals, but a 
living, growing organism, the laws of which are something 
different from the laws of individual action. Aristotle 
was a socialist in this sense of the word, which, it may be 
remarked, is a true sense of the word ; for he maintained 
that you never could arrive at the whole by a mere addi- 
tion of the units comprising it, and consequently that the 
welfare of society could not be secured through exclusive 

3 



4 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

attention to individual claims. The prosperity of the 
whole, however, he maintained, implied the prosperity of 
all the individuals which it includes. In other words, 
this sage of antiquity thought we must proceed in our 
treatment of social questions from the standpoint of 
society, and not from that of the individual. 

** The state is, by nature," says Aristotle,^ '' clearly prior to the 
individual and to the family, since the whole is of necessity prior 
to the part. . . . The proof that the state is a creation of nature, 
and prior to the individual, is that the individual, when isolated, 
is not self-sufficing ; and therefore he is like a part in relation to 
the whole. But he who is unable to live in society, or who has 
no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast 
or a god." 

The great thinkers in economics and politics in all ages 
have been socialists in this general sense of the word, and 
opposed to them has been a small sect of individualists, 
who reject the conception of the state as an organism, and 
believe that the standpoint of the individual is sufficient, 
both in science and in practice. Two definitions of social- 
ism, as here understood, may be helpful to the reader. 
The first is taken from an address on Socialism by Dr. 
Westcott, the present bishop of Durham. It is used to 
describe, as the author says, not merely a theory of eco- 
nomics, but a theory of life, and is given in the following 
words : — 

** Individualism regards humanity as made up of disconnected 
or warring atoms. Socialism regards it as an organic whole. . . . 
The aim of socialism is the fulfilment of service ; the aim of indi- 
vidualism is the attainment of some personal advantage — riches, 
place, or fame. Socialism seeks such an organization of life as 
shall secure for every one the most complete development of hie 

1 Aristotle's Politics, Book I., 2, §§ 12-14. 



SOCIALISM IN A MORE GENERAL SENSE, b 

powers ; individualism seeks primarily the satisfaction of the par- 
ticular wants of each one, in the hope that the piu*suit of private 
interests will, in the end, secure public welfare." 

And further on in the same address Dr. Westcott asserts 
that "the goal of human endeavor is the common well- 
being of all alike, sought through conditions which pro- 
vide for the fullest culture of each man as opposed to the 
special development of a race or a class, by the sacrifice 
of others in slavery or serfdom, or necessary subjection ; '^ 
and he speaks of this as the central idea of socialism. 
He maintains, however, that " it does not follow that the 
end can be reached only in one way.'' 

Socialism is then not restricted necessarily to state 
activity, but it becomes equivalent to affectionate regard 
for others in society, and the systematic attempt to im- 
prove others. It is used as the opposite of individualism, 
which then means a selfish and inconsiderate exaltation 
of the individual. 

The second definition of socialism to which reference 
is made, is that given by Prof. Adolph Wagner, the cele- 
brated professor of political economy in the University 
of Berlin. Defining socialism in a more general sense 
as the opposite of individualism, he says : — 

** It is, therefore, a principle which regulates social and economic 
life according to the needs of society as a whole, or which makes 
provision for the satisfaction of those needs, whereas, individual- 
ism is a principle which, in social and economic life, places the 
individual in the foreground, takes the individual as a starting- 
point, and makes his interests and wishes the rule for society.'' 

The use of the word socialism in the large sense just 
described is a legitimate one, for it serves to designate a 
class of thinkers, and to distinguish them from those 



6 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

who hold very different views. Socialism and individ- 
ualism are two different philosophical systems. The 
only objection to the use of the word socialism to des- 
ignate that social philosophy which is contrasted with 
individualism in the broadest sense, is that socialism has 
a narrower meaning, to be described presently, which has 
become prevalent. Thus, if a writer declares, "I am a 
socialist ! " he is more likely to be classed with Karl 
Marx than with Aristotle. 

The word socialism has, however, other general uses 
which seem to be altogether wanting in any scientific 
precision of meaning, and which should therefore be 
rejected. It is employed to designate in such a vague 
manner a tendency or attitude of mind, that it lacks all 
metes and bounds. It has, for example, even been used 
to designate the thoughts and efforts of those who con- 
cern themselves with social affairs. Manifestly, in this 
sense, it would include a large amount of the individual- 
istic as well as the socialistic philosophy. One writer^ has 
called socialism the economic philosophy of the suffering 
classes. Doubtless he himself would not claim for this 
statement the character of a scientific definition; for 
socialism is not the only economic philosophy which has 
been or may be embraced by those spoken of as the suf- 
fering classes. We might likewise call anarchy, or vol- 
untary co-operation, or Mr. Henry George's single tax, the 
economic philosophy of the suffering classes. The radi- 
cal improvement of the lot of the propertyless majority 
has been declared to be the material content of socialism. 
In addition to the objections already urged to the pre- 
vious statement, it may be said that it is not necessary 
to view socialism as a class problem, although it must be 
1 Dr. von Scheel. 



SOCIALISM IN A MOllE GENERAL SENSE, 7 

admitted that it is so viewed by most social democrats in 
Germany. Socialism may be advocated by an artist from 
the artistic standpoint, or by a theologian from a religious 
standpoint. The true aim of the best socialism, it seems 
to the writer, is that general social amelioration which 
proposes to sacrifice no class, but to improve and elevate 
all classes. It does not necessarily mean the abolition of 
classes, although under any system of socialism other 
class distinctions would prevail than those which now 
obtain. 

While each honest and careful definition of socialism 
tells us something, there is a whole class of definitions 
which must be simply rejected as dishonest. 

For example, when one says that socialism is that sys- 
tem which swallows up individual liberty, subordinating 
entirely the individual to society, it is plain that the so- 
called definition is no definition, but a condemnation of 
that which is to be defined. Then there are certain pop- 
ular and inaccurate ideas which need not occupy our 
time. There are those who call any general social up- 
heaval and widespread turning things upside down, social- 
ism, although this upheaval manifestly may be as well 
anti-socialistic as socialistic. Then there are those — and 
we meet them very commonly — who call whatever they 
regard as an exaggeration of the social principle, social- 
ism, especially if it takes the form of state activity. 
Thus, whether the ordinary man calls the government 
ownership and management of the telegraph socialism or 
not, will depend upon whether he approves it or not. 
That kind of governmental activity which is not liked by 
any particular person is apt to be called by that person 
socialism. Manifestly we can make no progress in scien- 
tific discussion with such va«rue and unscientific ideas. 



8 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL llKFOiaL 

The word socialism, as generally employed, has a far 
narrower meaning than socialism in the broad sense al- 
ready described. It calls to mind an industrial society 
which, in its main features, is sufficiently clear and precise. 
It is not a theory which embraces all departments of social 
activity, but is confined to the economic department,^ 
dealing with others simply as connected Avith this and 
influenced by it. This socialism is frequently designated 
as " scientific socialism." It is with this socialism, which 
presents a theory of industrial society based upon radical 
social reconstruction, that the present work deals. 

1 Cf. Prof. Anton Menger's work, Das Recht auf den vollen Ar- 
beitsertrag, p. 2. 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM. 



CHAPTER II. 
THE EliEMENTS OF SOCIALISM. 

Socialism, when analyzed, is found to embrace four 
main elements. The first of these is the common owner- 
ship of the material instruments of production. It is 
not stated precisely how this common ownership is to 
be brought about, or exactly what form it is to take. 
Opinions may and do differ about the practical steps 
which are to be taken to secure the desired end, and also 
about the nature of the collective organization in which 
this ownership is to be vested. But no one can be called 
a socialist in the modern technical sense who does not 
accept the doctrine of the common ownership of the 
material instruments of production. The collectivity, 
that is, society as a whole, is to take the place of indi- 
viduals and private associations of individuals as owners 
of land and capital, in order that the advantages of 
ownership may accrue to the whole, and not merely to a 
part of the whole. The private receipt of rent and in- 
terest in the economic sense then ceases, for rent and 
interest are the remuneration of ownership. 

It is not difficult to understand what this postulate of 
socialism, namely, the socialization of the material in- 
struments of production, means. It is simply necessary 
to exercise one's imagination, and to picture to one's self 
the extension of that which already exists in a compara- 
tively small way. The post-office in the United States 



10 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

is already socialized. It is owned by the people as a 
whole, and all share in many ways in the advantages 
of this common ownership. The telegraph in most 
countries is a part of the post-office, and it is owned by 
the collectivity. Kailways in many countries are public, 
not private property. Forests are to a considerable 
extent collective property. All these kinds of wealth 
are instruments of production ; and if that process which 
has made of these instruments collective property is 
continued until substantially all the land and all the 
capital have been socialized, we shall have realized the 
first demand of socialism. 

It is said substantially all land and capital, because it 
is held that it is not necessary that the common owner- 
ship should be absolutely all-inclusive. It is a weakness 
of the extremists to insist on all — inclusiveness in com- 
mon ownership, which much damages their cause. What 
is necessary is that the collective ownership should be- 
come dominant in such manner as to control all other 
ownership and confine it within narrow limits. All the 
great instruments of production, like telegraphs, tele- 
phones, railways, forests, arable lands, and large manu- 
facturing plants, must become collective property; but 
socialism does not imply that it is necessary to restrict 
individuals in the acquisition of the instruments of pro- 
duction on a small scale, — for example, a wheelbarrow 
or a cart. Socialism, then, presented in the strongest 
form, does not proceed so much negatively as construc- 
tively. Society is to acquire the instruments of pro- 
duction ; but individuals, for the most part, are not to 
be restrained, except indirectly, by positive social action. 

Emphasis has been laid by repetition upon the word 
material as qualification of the instruments of produc- 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM. 11 

tion. This means that man is excluded. For the social- 
ist claims that under socialism man will, for the first 
time, become free. Man has, in times past, been owned 
as a slave, and the socialists claim that the wage-earner 
is even now a wage-slave, and their purpose is to free 
man. 

Attention must be called, also, to the statement that 
it is the material instruments of production which are to 
be owned in common, and not all wealth. That wealth 
which is not designed for further production can still 
remain private property under socialism. This means 
wealth used for enjoyment rather than for production; 
for example, the furniture of one's house, family plate, 
heirlooms of all sorts, pictures, books, clothing, and many 
other forms of wealth which can easily be enumerated. 
The ground for the distinction becomes obvious enough 
on reflection. The design of socialism is the abolition of 
the private receipt of rent and interest. It desires to 
abolish private property only in so far as it enables one 
to gather an income through the toil of others without 
personal exertions ; for that the socialists call levying a 
tribute upon the labor of others. 

The second element in socialism is the common man- 
agement of production. Not only are the material in- 
struments of production to be owned in common, but 
they are to be managed by the collectivity, in order that 
to the people as a whole may accrue all the beneflts 
of management; that is, all those gains of enterprise 
called profits, as distinguished from interest, and in 
order that the management may be conducted in accord- 
ance with the public need, rather than in accordance with 
the advantage of private captains of industry. Produc- 
tion is to be carried on to satisfy our wants for material 



12 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

tilings, and not for the sake of private profits. The dis- 
tinction is undoubtedly a marked one. Production now 
ceases when those who manage it are unable to derive 
profits therefrom. This is a necessity under modern or 
capitalistic production; but under a socialistic regime, 
production is not stopped so long as wants clamor for 
satisfaction, and until all wants are satisfied there can, 
of course, be no real over-production. The distinction 
between common ownership and common management, 
that is, management by representatives of the people 
responsible to the people, is made clear in a moment 
by one or two simple illustrations. Eailways have been 
sometimes owned by the people in their collective capa- 
city, and operated by a private company. There are 
those, indeed, who advocate common ownership of all the 
railways in the United States, with private operation. 
Land which is owned by the collectivity is frequently 
cultivated by private individuals. What socialism wants, 
then, is not merely common ownership, but also a com- 
mon or collective management. 

This common management of production means that 
the collectivity must furnish work for all who desire it. 
As the socialistic state assumes the charge of production, 
leaving only very minor functions to individuals, it rests 
upon it, of course, to make the industrial society all-in- 
clusive. Indeed, the possibility of socialism once granted, 
there can be no difficulty about this. Every one is nat- 
urally assigned to some function which will make him 
socially useful; and the problem of the unemployed is 
inconceivable, as production is no longer conducted for 
exchange, but for consumption, and the greater the pro- 
duction the more ample will be the means for the satis- 
faction of all wants. Should it be possible at any moment 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM. 13 

to produce more than men really desire to consume, it 
would merely be necessar}^ to shorten the length of the 
working day. It would not only be true, however, tluit 
all could lind work, but all would have to work, as, with 
common ownership, the possibility of income without 
personal exertion would be cut off. How many could 
find employment in private service, it is not easy to say. 
Under socialism, we should expect a social organization 
of medical attendance and the supply of medicines, which 
would be simply carrying further tendencies already at 
work ; and }'et some might prefer to employ private phy- 
sicians. Should the members of the socialistic society be 
willing to give part of their income in return for private 
medical services, there is no reason why they should 
be hindered in so doing. Similarly, religious services 
might be maintained by private contributions, and in the 
churches there could be large numbers of preachers out- 
side of public employment. Possibly, also, room could 
be found for remunerative employment, of a private 
character, of a great many persons in the aggregate, who 
would concern themselves with the smaller branches of 
production. Yet, if socialism works as well as it is 
claimed it will, there would naturally be a preference, 
altogether apart from any compulsion, for public employ- 
ment. We see that great public hospitals, at the present 
time, encroach somewhat on the individual practice of 
])hysicians, and that public schools, in many, places, 
drive out private schools, although the law interposes 
no obstacles in the way of their success. 

The tliird element is the distribution of income by the 
common authority ; that is, tlie income of society, or the 
national dividend, as it is frequently called : and it is 
that part of the wealth produced by society which may 



14 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

be used for enjoyment, after the material instruments of 
production have been maintained and suitably improved 
and extended. The common ownership and management 
of the material instruments of production necessarily 
results in ownership of the national dividend by the col- 
lectivity, in the first instance, just as now those who own 
and manage industry have the ownership of the products 
of industry, and from these products satisfy the claims 
of those who have participated in their production. It 
remains for the collectivity to distribute all the wealth 
produced for consumption among all the members of 
society. 

^ As there is provision of work for all in the public 
service, so there must be provided an income for aD. 
But this provision of income for all reaches even further 
than the ranks of the toilers. There must always be in 
society some who are physically or mentally incapable 
of toil, and socialism contemplates the provision of an 
income for these also. The idea of socialism in this 
respect is that of mutual insurance. We are all insured 
from our birth against contingencies incapacitating us 
from earning a livelihood ; and provision is made for the 
satisfaction of our wants, even if we cannot render a 
personal return. 

We are now brought face to face with what we may, 
perhaps, call the chief purpose of socialism ; namely, dis- 
tributive justice. While socialists have desired to bring 
about a better industrial organization to increase wealth, 
and while they even lay emphasis upon the vast addi- 
tions to the national dividend which, according to them, 
socialism would bring, it can scarcely be too much to say 
. that almost, if not quite invariably, considerations con- 
cerning justice in distribution have given them their 
initiative. 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM. 15 

Yet what is justice in distribution ? While all agree 
that the present distribution is unjust, wide differences 
of opinion exist as to what is, after all, that justice in 
distribution which is to be the aim of the new society. 
A learned jurist, and at the same time an avowed social- 
ist, claims that the socialistic schemes of distribution 
may be divided into two classes ; namely, distribution 
which aims to satisfy needs, and distribution which aims 
to accord to each one the full product of his toil. This 
would hardly seem to be sufficient to cover all socialistic 
plans of distribution, and perhaps it is better to ap- 
proach the subject from a somewhat different stand- 
point. We can distinguish at least four schemes of 
distributive justice. One is the distribution which aims 
to secure absolute mechanical equality, that is, equality 
in quantity and kinds of goods. All must have food, 
clothing, shelter, education, and, in fact, all good things, 
so far as this is possible, in like quality and quantity. 
If distinctions in clothing are made foi age and sex, 
this is the most which can be tolerated.^ Emphasis is 
laid upon the equality to be carried out in all details 
— equality is the aim and end of this sort of distribu- 
tion. A later idea of distributive justice is that which 
apportions reward to merit. It has been proposed that 
society should be organized in hierarchical form, and 
that in this hierarchically organized industrial society 
positions should be assigned according to capacity, the 
highest positions going to the greatest capacity ; and 
that reward should be in proportion to capacity. There 
could thus be room for quite as many gradations in 

1 This was the view of Baboeuf. See tlie author's Frencli and 
German Socialism, where the other views of distribution are also 
described. 



16 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

society as at present, but their basis would be personal, 
and not inherited rank or property.^ A still later idea of 
distributive justice is that which assigns the product in 
proportion to needs, recognizing the inequality of needs, 
while calling upon each one to render service in propor- 
tion to his strength of body and mind. Double strength, 
then, means double duty, but no greater claim on that 
account upon the national dividend; for the larger claim 
upon the national dividend must be based simply upon 
greater need.^ The fourth idea of distributive justice, 
and that which seems now to prevail generally among 
the more active socialists, is equality of income; not 
a mechanical equality, but an equality in value. 

Each one, according to this idea, is to receive an equal 
value as his income ; but these values may be represented 
by goods and services the most diverse. There are those 
who claim that this last distribution accords both with 
the demand that distribution shall be according to needs, 
and that it should accord to each one the full product 
of his toil. Por they hold that equal values will en- 
able every one to satisfy all rational needs, and that the 
services of all who participate in production, according 
to their strength have substantially equal value. But 
whatever idea in regard to distributive justice is once 
adopted, society is to carry it out. 

The fourth element in socialism is private property in 
the larger proportion of income. It thus becomes at 
once apparent that modern socialism does not propose 
to abolish private property. Quite the contrary. Social 
ism maintains that private property is necessary for 
personal freedom and the full development of ouf facul- 

1 This was the view of the St. Simonians. 

2 Louis Blanc's idea of distributive justice. 



THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM. 17 

ties. The advantages of private property are claimed 
by the advocates of the existing social order as argu- 
ments for its maintenance ; but socialism asserts that 
society, as at present constituted, is unable to secure 
to each one the private property which he requires. 
Socialism proposes to extend the institution of pri- 
vate property in such manner as to secure to each in- 
dividual in society property in an annual income, which 
shall be, so far as practicable, sufficient to satisfy all 
rational wants, and to protect all from those attacks 
upon personal freedom which proceed from the depend- 
ence of man upon man. The instruments of production 
do not exist for their own sake, but for the sake of 
products for consumption, which again have as their 
destination man's needs. Now, while private property 
in the instruments of production is to be reduced to its 
lowest terms, it is to be extended and strengthened in 
the products for the sake of which the instruments exist. 
Attention must be called to the expression, ^^ the larger 
proportion of income.'' Income is derived from the use 
of property. Even at present the amount of j^roperty 
enjoyed in common is in the aggregate large. Public 
parks, public galleries, public schools, public highways, 
are illustrations which readily occur to one. All these 
institutions yield an income enjoyed freely by all in pro- 
portion to needs and capacities ; for income as just stated 
means use or enjoyment. We have at the present time 
in the United States, in these things, something which 
may be called true communism. Naturally, under social- 
ism, as the thoughts of men would be more directed to 
the common welfare, and the inclination of men to enjoy 
things in common would be greatly strengthened, there 
would be a very large increase in the number of things 



18 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL IlEFOUM, 

enjoyed in common, and thus yielding a common income. 
Public libraries would unquestionably be greatly in- 
creased ; and while no sane socialist would propose to 
prohibit private ownership of libraries, a great increase 
in public libraries might perhaps diminish the desire to 
have private libraries. Possibly the same would be true 
with regard to galleries of art and museums ; and it could 
not fail to be true with respect to grounds for pleasure and 
recreation. There would be thus a use of more things 
than at present in common ; and thus there would be an 
absolute increase, and probably also a relative increase, 
in the common income, and private income would be 
correspondingly diminished. There is a tendency, even 
at the present time, to increase very considerably the 
number and importance of those things that are enjoyed 
in common ; and socialism would simply carry further 
this tendency and accelerate it. Nevertheless, the greater 
proportion of the national dividend would, even as at 
present, still be private income. 



DEFINITIONS OF SOCIALISM. 19 



CHAPTER III. 
DEFrNTTIONS OF SOCIAUSM. 

It is well to give especial attention to definitions in 
any subject tliat belongs to moral or political philos- 
ophy, because definitions give us the central ideas of 
their authors. A few significant definitions of socialism, 
in the narrow sense with which this work is concerned, 
will be given in the present chapter, in order, on the one 
hand, that the reader may contrast these definitions with 
the analysis of socialism given in the preceding chap- 
ter ; and on the other, that he may, by comparison, see 
the points most significant in the program of socialism 
as they present themselves to the minds of different 
persons. 

First of all, the results of the analysis of socialism 
may be brought together in a definition which would 
read somewhat as follows : Socialism is that contemiila ted 
si/stem of industrial society ivhich proposes the aholition of 
private property in the great material instruments of pro- 
duction, and the substitution therefor of collective property; 
and advocates the collective management of production, to- 
gether with the distribution of social income by society, 
and private property in the larger proportion of this social 
income. 

Two of the most noteworthy writers on socialism 
who are not themselves socialists are Dr. Schaffle, whose 
works, " The Quintessence of Socialism " and " The Im- 



20 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

possibility of Social Democracy/' have attracted so much 
attention, and Professor Adolph Wagner, who has so 
successfully attempted the utilization of the results of 
socialistic thought, without the acceptance of anything 
like its entire program. Both these writers have given 
definitions of socialism which well deserve attention. 
That of Dr. Schaffle is given in a description of the 
real aim of socialism, and reads as follows : — 

'' To replace the system of private capital (that is, the specu- 
lative method of production, regulated on behalf of society only 
by the free competition of private enterprises), by a system of 
collective capital, that is by a method of production which would 
introduce a unified (social or 'collective') organization of na- 
tional income on the basis of collective or common ownership of 
the means of production by all the members of the society. This 
collective method of production would remove the present com- 
petitive system, by placing under official administration such de- 
partments of production as can be managed collectively (socially 
or co-operatively), as well as the distribution among all of the 
common products of all, according to the amount and social util- 
ity of the productive labor of each.'' 

The contrast carried through this definition between 
socialism and the present social order should be particu- 
larly noticed. The definition is complicated, but when 
it is analyzed it will be found to contain the elements 
described in the preceding chapter. Perhaps it is de- 
fective in the statement that socialism proposes to place 
under official administration such departments of pro- 
duction as can be managed collectively, without stating 
directly that socialism maintains the possibility of a 
collective management substantially of all production. 
The definition may also be considered faulty because it 
carries with it one particular idea of distributive justice ; 
namely, distribution according to services, and, as we 



DEFINITIONS OF SOCIALISM. 21 

have already seen, this is not the only idea of distribu- 
tive justice known to socialism. 

Professor Wagner gives the following definition of 
socialism in the narrower or more special sense : — 

''Extreme socialism, or the modern scientific, economic social- 
ism, is a system of economic legal order opposed to the present 
order. Socialism demands that the material means of production, 
that is, land and capital, should not he, as at present, mostly the 
private property of single private members of the social body, but 
should be the collective property of society itself; that, conse- 
quently, private undertakings designed to secure profit should 
not stand on one side, and wage-earners, paid according to the 
conditions of the labor-contract, on the other, these various un- 
dertakings and wage-earners competing with one another; that 
production should not be conducted by individual capitalistic 
managers according to their individual estimate of demand, 
which means, on the whole, an unregulated production depend- 
ent upon the course of speculation and the influences of chance, 
and that the distribvition of the product should take place ac- 
cording to the accidents of the law of supply and demand. 
Socialism requires, on the contrary, that production should take 
place according to plans based upon the carefully ascertained 
demand of the consumers, and that it should be duly regulated 
by public authority; that it should be carried on in a co-operative 
manner, or in state and municipal institutions, etc., and that 
the product should be divided among the producers in a jueter 
manner than at present, when the distribution is effected by 
means of the law of demand and supply." 

This definition adds something to our previously as- 
certained ideas of socialism. The first words, ^^ extreme 
socialism, or modern, scientific economic socialism," are 
worthy of note. The socialism popularly agitated is pro- 
nounced extreme, and is opposed by implication to a 
more conservative socialism ; namely, socialism in the 
larger, but, after all, truer sense. The second point to 



22 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

wliicli attention is called by this definition, is the sci- 
entilic character of even this extreme socialism. Mod- 
ern socialism is by implication contrasted with the more 
or less fantastic schemes of earlier writers ; and it is 
frankly admitted that socialism, even in the special 
sense, has been placed upon a scientific basis by thinkers 
like Eodbertus-Jagetzow, Friedrich Engels, and Karl 
Marx. The third noteworthy point in the definition 
under consideration is that which describes socialism as 
a legal order. The problems involved are largely prob- 
lems of law. Although it may be going too far to declare 
that socialism is chiefly, if not exclusively, a question 
for the jurist,^ it is undoubtedly true that, like other 
economic questions, it has not been adequately treated 
on the side of law. This definition, like the preceding 
one, carries through it a contrast between socialism and 
the present industrial order, and brings out some of the 
weaker points of the latter. The unsystematic, irreg- 
ular, hap-hazard character of present production is placed 
over against the social regulation of social production. 
Under socialism it is proposed, according to this defi- 
nition, carefully to ascertain the quantities of things of 
all kinds needed by the members of the social organism, 
and to produce them regularly in the most scientific 
manner, as a result of which, it is held, irregularities 
in production, crises, and industrial stagnation can be 
avoided. Social control thus replaces chance. It is 
not stated exactly how products are to be distributed, 
but it is merely said that the distribution aims to ap- 
proximate absolute justice more nearly than the present 
system. 

1 This is claimed by Prof. Anton Menger in his work, **Das Recht 
auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag." 



DEFINITIONS OF SOCIALISM. 23 

We now pass over to definitions given by avowed so- 
cialists, and it is worth while to devote some attention to 
several of these. Among those who belong to the social- 
ists there is, perhaps, no one more conservative than Mr. 
Thomas Kirkup, in whose book, " An Inquiry Into So- 
cialism,'' the following statement is found : — 

'' The essence of socialism is this: it proposes that industry be 
carried on by associated laborers jointly owning the means of 
production (land and capital). Whereas industry is at present 
conducted by private and competing capitalists served by wage 
labor, it must in the future be carried on by associated labor, with 
a collective capital, and with a view to an equitable system of dis- 
tribution" (pp. 11 and 12). 

Emphasis is laid on the ownership of the means of 
production by the collective workers, and Mr. Kirkup 
elsewhere expressly states that it is a principle which 
may be partially realized, even on a small scale. While 
a general system is the aim of socialism, he would 
not refuse the name of socialism to a co-operative society 
of workers owning the means of production and carrying 
on an enterprise on their own account, even under present 
conditions. 

Mr. Bellamy, the founder of the school of socialism 
called nationalism, declares that ^^ industrial self-govern- 
ment is a very convenient and accurate definition of na- 
tionalism." The central thought in socialism, according 
to Mr. Bellamy, would seem to be democracy in industry. 
At the present time, while we have democracy in politics, 
we have in industry a system to which, for the most part, 
we may properly apply the term despotism. Industry is 
controlled by the capitalist, and the worker must submit 
to his commands or quit his service, just as the alterna- 
tive of obedience to the laws of the Czar is emigration. 



24 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFOEM. 

The despotic principle in industry, while zealously main- 
tained as desirable by many, is held by socialists to be 
pernicious ; and with Mr. Bellamy they generally declare 
that political democracy cannot be permanently main- 
tained, unless it is based on economic democracy. 

The Nationalists, in their Declaration of Principles, 
adopted early in their history, did not attempt any formal 
definition of nationalism ; but declared that they wished 
to substitute a system based on the principle of associa- 
tion for ^^a system founded on the brute principle of 
competition." 

Perhaps no society of socialists includes in its member- 
ship a larger number of highly educated men than the 
Fabian Society of England. One of its members, Mr. 
William Clarke, defines a socialist as " one who believes 
that the necessary instruments of production should be 
held and organized by the community, instead of by indi- 
viduals, or groups of individuals, within or outside of the 
community. ^^ ^ 

Another Fabian, Mr. Graham Wallas, implies a defini- 
tion of socialism in his statement that " Socialists work 
for the owning of the means of production by the com- 
munity and the means of consumption by individuals." ^ 

This society issues a program, in which it is stated 
that, as it consists of socialists, it aims " at the reorgan- 
ization of society by the emancipation of land and indus- 
trial capital from individual and class ownership, and 
the vesting of them in the community for the general 
benefit." It is added that "the society works for the 
transfer to the community of the administration of such 

1 Political Science Quarterly y December, 1888, article " Socialism 
in English Politics." 

2 Fabian Essays, p. 133. 



DEFINITIONS OF SOCIALISM, 25 

industrial capital as can conveniently be managed so- 
cially.'^ Elsewhere in the writings of the Fabians it is 
plainly stated that practically all industrial capital can 
conveniently be managed socially. 

The Social Democratic Federation of England, a body 
pursuing, perhajis, methods more popular than those of 
the Fabian Society, and resembling more closely the 
social democracy of Germany, states that its object is 
"The socialization of the means of production, distribu- 
tion, and exchange, to be controlled by a democratic 
state in the interests of the entire community, and the 
complete emancipation of labor from the domination of 
capitalism and landlor^sm, with the establishment of 
social and economic equality between the sexes.'' A new 
feature of this statement — which carries with it a defi- 
nition of socialism — is that it brings out the demand for 
social and economic equality between the sexes; a de- 
mand made by practically all socialistic societies. 

A French socialist by the name of Lafargue, a son-in- 
law of Karl Marx, gives a definition which brings out 
clearly the thought of the latter, that socialism comes as 
a result of a natural evolution, and not as the result of 
man's determination to replace the present social order 
by a better. He says : " Socialism is not the system of 
any reformer whatever ; it is the doctrine of those who 
believe that the existing system is on the eve of a fatal 
economic evohition which will establish collective owner- 
ship in the hands of organizations of workers, in place of 
the individual ownership of capital. Socialism is of the 
character, therefore, of an historical discovery." ^ 

1 This definition was given in the Neio Nation of March 5, 1802. 
It appeared originaUy in the French paper Le Fir/aro, which had 
offered a prize of one liundred francs for tlie best definition of social- 
ism. This was one of the six liundred competing definitions. 



26 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

The claim may, perhaps, be made for the social 
democratic party of Germany by its friends, that it has 
developed beyond the stage of definitions. It issues, 
however, a platform in which is traced the evolution 
which it is maintained will inevitably issue in socialism, 
by which is meant social ownership of the means of 
production, special mention being made of the soil, quar- 
ries, mines, raw material, tools, machines, and the means 
of transportation ; and it is stated that production must 
be carried on by and for society. The doctrine is also 
brought out in the program that socialism implies of 
necessity a class struggle, and that the emancipation of 
the working-class must be achieved by the wage-earners, 
in opposition to all other classes. 

When one understands what socialism means, it can- 
not be difficult to define the adjective socialistic, which 
at present is generally used in such an altogether vague 
and indefinite manner. That line of policy is properly 
designated '' socialistic " which tends to bring about so- 
cialism. Manifestly, then, not all government activity 
can be called socialistic. If the purpose or the spirit 
of the activity in qu-estion is to render the collectivity 
dominant in the economic sphere, then it must be desig- 
nated as socialistic; otherwise, not. Those have studied 
socialism to little purpose who imagine that the socialist 
approves of all activity of government whatsoever, and 
that he is ready to indorse any plan which will enlarge 
the functions of government. As a matter of fact, it is 
probable that socialists disapprove of nine projects out 
of ten calculated to enlarge the sphere of government, 
which are brought forward, nevertheless, by some party 
or faction. They would disapprove of much of this 
legislation, because they think it not likely to accom- 



DEFINITIONS OF SOCIALISM. 27 

plish the end Avhich its advocates have in view ; and a 
great deal of it receives their condemnation because it 
reveals a directly anti-socialistic spirit. Much legisla- 
tion is designed to foster and build up private industry. 
Naturally, all this is rejected by socialism. Subsidies 
and grants to private enterprise are anti-socialistic, be- 
cause their purpose is to bolster up that which socialism 
disapproves. Bonuses given for the establishment of 
manufacturing plants are anti-socialistic. It is said that 
the financial dfsturbances in the Argentine Republic a 
few years ago could be traced, in part at least, to gov- 
ernment activity. It was stated by a United States 
consul that " Instead of limiting the government to the 
doing of the work for which all governments are in- 
stituted among men, it is notorious that the late gov- 
ernment authorities made use of its credit to promote 
enterprises which should have been left to individual 
enterprise ; to assist particular schemes which should 
have remained in the hands of private parties ; to float 
free banks all over the country based on a paper capital, 
and thus flood the avenues of trade with depreciated 
banknotes ; to loan money or issue cedulas on bond and 
mortgage." A governmental activity of this sort has 
been condemned as '' socialistic ; '' but it is nearly all 
directly contrary to the spirit of socialism. Excessive 
grants of pensions have also been connected by writers 
and speakers with the spirit of socialism, whereas, as a 
matter of fact, the socialists have been strongly opposed 
to the whole pension system in this country. 

There is a governmental activity of a different sort, 
which is regarded by some as socialistic and by others as 
anti-socialistic. Whether it is the one or the other must 
depend on the view which is taken of its probable out- 



28 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFOBM, 

come. Public education is advocated by many because it 
is thought that it tends to prepare men better for the 
existing society, and thus to defend society against revo- 
lutionary proposals. If one is to take such a view, then 
one would say that this governmental activity is anti- 
socialistic. If, however, one takes the view that popular 
education is designed to awaken a general discontent, 
which must lead to socialism, or that its purpose is to 
prepare men for socialism, then one must hold that it is 
socialistic. It is much to be desired that a more careful 
use of the word socialistic should take the place of its 
present loose use. 



THE SOCIALISTIC STATE. 29 



CHAPTER IV. 
THE SOCIALISTIC STATE. 

We cannot understand socialism unless we give caic- 
ful attention to the attitude which socialists take with 
respect to the state. It is in respect to this attitude that 
socialists differ among themselves, perhaps as widely as 
in regard to any doctrine. 

We can conceive of a socialism which would imply 
simply the present state, enlarged in such a manner that 
it would include within its functions the production and 
distribution of wealth. It might be said, however, in 
general, that no active socialist would approve of this 
kind of socialism, because socialists do not view the pres- 
ent state altogether with favor. Some socialists desire 
to change the existing state in minor matters, while oth- 
ers wish to alter it radically, and are inclined to oppose 
anything likely to strengthen it. The German social 
democrats take the latter attitude with respect to the 
state. They, indeed, go so far as to say that they desire 
the abolition of the state. But it must be borne in mind 
that they use the word state, as they do " capital," and 
many other terms, in a technical sense peculiar to them- 
selves. When they say that they desire to abolish the 
state, they have in mind the state which stands for a 
class, and which promotes the interests of that class by 
repressive measures designed to keep down the other 
classes while they are exploited. 

The German social democrats are not only socialists, 



30 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

they are also democrats, and they live in a state which is 
anything but democratic. They fear the present state, 
and they look with little favor, or with positive opposi- 
tion, upon plans to extend its economic functions. This 
is what they mean by their opposition to state socialism. 
State socialism means to correct the wrongs and advance 
the interests of the masses by economic measures, but 
does not regard it as necessary to change radically the 
political constitution of the state. The social democrats 
of Germany, at their convention in 1892, consequently 
felt called upon to denounce state socialism as conserva- 
tive, while declaring that social democracy was a revolu- 
tionary force. Their opposition to the state is like their 
opposition to state socialism. They define the state as 
" an organized power for the maintenance of the actually 
existing social relations of property and class domina- 
tion.'^ The socialistic state to which they look forward 
— one which will recognize no class interests, but will 
promote the interests of all equally — is held by them 
to be something so different that it cannot be properly 
called a state. Their talk, then, about the abolition of 
the state implies a doctrine not only with respect to 
future social organization, but also with respect to the 
existing state. 

The English Fabians and the American socialists do not 
talk about the abolition of the state ; and when a social- 
ist in England or the United States indulges in such talk, 
it may safely be taken for granted that he stands under 
foreign, particularly German, influence. This is natural 
enough, because the political constitution of the state in 
each of these countries is more democratic, and can be 
more readily made to serve the interests of the masses 
without radical political changes. 



THE SOCIALISTIC STATE. 31 

All active agitators of socialism want a democratic 
state, because they wish that control of the collectivity 
over the economic life should be exercised in behalf of 
tlie masses. They are all not merely socialists, but 
democrats, although they do not find it everywhere 
equally necessary to lay emphasis upon their democracy. 
Nevertheless, we find all socialists advocating political 
changes ; and it may be said that the country whose 
political institutions they view with most favor is Switz- 
erland. We may mention two institutions found in 
Switzerland which meet with almost, if not quite, univer- 
sal approval ; namely, the referendum, compelling, under 
certain circumstances, the reference of laws to the people 
for acceptance or rejection ; and the initiative, giving to 
a prescribed number of people the right to propose laws, 
which must be submitted to the people as a whole for 
acceptance or rejection. Proportional representation is 
a third political reform which meets with general favor 
on the part of socialists. As is well known, this pro- 
poses the election of legislators on a general ticket, with 
such arrangements that parties and factions would have 
a representation in proportion to the number of votes 
which they cast. One-tenth of the people could thus, 
by cumulating their votes, have one representative. The 
reason why the socialists favor these measures is because 
they tend to keep government in the hands of the 
people. 

It is for the same reason that all socialists are working 
for the decentralization of government. They look upon 
the present state as too highly centralized. They wish 
to transfer functions from central governments to local 
political units, in order that the business of the people 
may be near the people. It is so far from being the 



32 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFOBM. 

truth that they favor centralization, that most of them 
go to what would ordinarily be called extreme lengths in 
opposition to centralization, and in advocacy of measures 
which may build up the local political unit. Local self- 
government, even of an extreme form, is a watchword 
among them. 

The following two quotations from the Fabian social- 
ists are typical, and indicate a general attitude of so- 
cialists in all countries : — 

'' The division of the country into clearly defined areas, each 
with its elected authority, is essential to any effective scheme of 
organization. It is one of the signs of the coming age that, in 
perfect unconsciousness of the nature of his act, Mr. Kitchie has 
established the commune. He has divided England into districts 
ruled by county councils, and has thus created the machinery 
without which socialism was impracticable." i 

'' At present the state machine has practically broken down 
under the strain of spreading democracy, the work being mainly 
local, and the machinery mainly central. Without efficient local 
machinery the replacing of private enterprise by state enterprise 
is out of the question." 2 

Still a third socialist speaks of the formation of a defi- 
nite socialist party as identical with '' a party pledged to 
the communalization of all the means of production and 
exchange." 

The function of a national government in socialism is 
held to be a federalization of municipalities, and the 
equalization of their natural advantages, possibly by a 
system of taxation to yield the funds for genera! ex- 
penses. 

When~ one reflects upon the extreme position in favor 

1 Annie Besant, Fabian Essays, pp. 152-3. 
8 Q, Bernard Shaw, Fabian Essays, p. 187. 



THE SOCIALISTIC STATE. 33 

of local self-government, taken very generally by social- 
ists, one cannot help wondering whether adequate provis- 
ion has been made for those businesses which must be 
organized on a national scale, like railways and tele- 
graphs. The tendency of socialistic thought, however, it 
may be said, is one which lays increasing emphasis upon 
municipalization rather than nationalization of industry. 
The nationalists in the United States may, perhaps, be 
regarded as an exception. They speak about the national- 
ization of industry ; and one of their leaders says that, 
"Nationalism has given American socialism a distinc- 
tively national cast, as socialism in France has assumed 
a distinctively communal cast." At the same time, the 
special activity of the nationalists has been devoted to 
measures designed to increase the powers of the local 
political unit; and the writer, just quoted, adds to his 
remarks about the national cast of American socialism 
the statement : " Nationalism has, to a very great ex- 
tent, promoted the development of interest in enlarged 
municipal functions, as witness the nationalist agitation 
for a municipal lighting law in Massachusetts.'' It 
would seem, then, that the American socialists known 
as nationalists, after all, fall in with the general social- 
istic tendency to favor especially the upbuilding of local 
self-government. 

Equally characteristic of the socialism of to-day is the 
general desire, on the part of socialists, to reduce the 
functions of government to a minimum. There is a gen- 
eral agreement among them that there should be as little 
government as is compatible with their main ends. They 
all favor whatever government or regulation is necessary 
to secure the socialistic production and distribution of 
wealth ; and they will indorse all those measures which 



34 SOCIALISM A]SrD SOCIAL REFOBM. 

are lield to be necessary to guarantee opportunities to all, 
for the full development of all their faculties. But 
beyond th:s they will not go, and they continually seek 
to devise plans for the accomplishment of these ends 
with the least possible exercise of governmental author- 
ity.^ It can safely be said that, outside the educational 
and economic spheres, they advocate a general laissez 
faille, or non-interference policy. The state church, for 
example, is not of necessity incompatible with socialism ; 
but, as a matter of fact, socialist parties invariably 
oppose anything of the kind; and the German social 
democrats, in their platform, expressly declare religion 
to be a private matter. Socialists sometimes say what 
they desire is not a government of men by men, but an 
administration of things. Some of them hope that what 
they call administration may take the place altogether of 
government, by which they evidently mean repressive 
measures designed to control individuals. 

Friedrich Engels, who with Karl Marx was the founder 
of what is called German scientific socialism, uses these 
words to bring out this thought : '' As soon as there is 
no longer any social class to be oppressed ; as soon as 
class domination and individual struggle for existence, 
caused by past anarchy in production, are removed with 
all their conflicts and excesses, there will be nothing 
more to repress which would require a special repres- 
sive power, that is to say, a state. The first act in which 
the state really appears as the representative of society 

1 The French socialist leader, M. Jules Guesde, says that the aims 
of Socialism have been correctly stated by John Stuart Mill in his 
autobiography in these words: ** The social problem of the future we 
considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action 
with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an 
equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labor.** 



TUE SOCIALISTIC STATE. 35 

as a whole, — namely, the seizure of the means of pro- 
duction in the name of society, — is at the same time 
its last independent act as a state. Interference of the 
state in social relations gradually becomes superfluous in 
one department after another, and finally of itself ceases 
(goes to sleep). The place of government over i^ersons 
is taken by administration of things and the management 
of productive processes.'' ^ 

Herr Bebel, in his work, " Woman and Socialism," 
gives a partial enumeration of the public institutions 
which he holds will disappear with the introduction of 
socialism. He mentions ministers, parliaments, stand- 
ing armies, police, courts, attorneys, taxation ; the place 
of them all being taken by administrative colleges or 
boards, which are to surround themselves with the best 
arrangements for production and distribution, for the de- 
termination of necessary supplies, and for the introduc- 
tion and application of the best improvements in art, in 
education, in the means of communication and transpor- 
tation, and in the productive processes. He hopes that 
the former representatives of the state will take their 
places in the various callings, and help to increase the 
productive wealth and conveniences of society with their 
intelligence and their mental and physical powers. To 
be sure, this is connected with certain moral improve- 
ments which he trusts the introduction of socialism will 
bring with it ; and it is not by any means true that all 
socialists share his optimism in regard to the immediate 
moral effects of socialism.^ 

1 This statement, peculiar to the German Social Democracy, is 
taken from Engels's *' Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der 
Utopie zur Wissenschaft." 

2 See **Die Frau und Sozialismus," by August Bebel, pp. 312, 314. 



36 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

There are different views with regard to the selection 
of those who are to conduct the socialistic state; and 
the modern socialist is cautious about speaking dogmat- 
ically on points of this kind, for he tells us that it is 
unscientific to attempt to give precise details in regard 
to future social organization. However, it is held that, 
whatever the arrangements, they must be thoroughly 
democratic. There is an inclination to favor the elec- 
tion of headmen, or selectmen, as they may be called, 
— using an American expression, — by popular vote of 
the workers. Mr. Bellamy, on the other hand, in his 
'' Looking Backward,'' describes a different socialistic 
state, in which the workers have no vote, but are di- 
rected by those elected by persons who have served their 
time in the industrial army. 



MISAPFUEHEN SIGNS CONCERNING SOCIALISM. 37 



CHAPTER V. 

SOME MISAPPREHENSIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE 
OF SOCIAIilSM. 

It will prove helpful, at least to those not accustomed 
to economic discussions, if brief attention is given to 
a few current opinions concerning socialism, which are 
based upon a failure to understand its true nature. One 
of these opinions most freqiiently encountered is that 
socialism proposes to divide up all property equally 
among all the members of society. This is an as- 
sumption upon which rests many a popular refutation 
of socialism. It is held that if all property should 
be divided up to-day, to-morrow the old inequalities 
would reappear. It is furthermore urged that if all 
wealth were equally divided, the share of one person 
would not be considerable. Familiar to all is the story 
of the banker Eothschild, who, when a poor man ex- 
pressed a longing for communism, took a thaler from his 
pocket and giving it to the man, told him that was his 
share of the wealth of a Rothschild. What socialism 
really proposes is not the division of proj)erty, but, as 
we have already seen, the concentration of productive 
property, in fact, its complete unification. This is suf- 
ficiently apparent to any one who reflects at all upon the 
preceding chapters. Manifestly the re-appearance of the 
old inequalities would tlien be an impossibility, whatever 
else might happen. In this connection we must also 



38 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL llEFOUM. 

bear in mind that socialism goes down beneath surface 
phenomena to underlying causes, and that is forgotten 
by those who urge flimsy objections of the kind men- 
tioned against socialism. They suppose that a division 
of wealth takes place, and then the production of wealth 
goes on as at the present time ; whereas, nothing could 
be further from the thoughts of the socialists. Similarlyy 
it is not a question of the wealth which actually exists, 
but of the wealth which the socialists propose to bring 
into existence. Socialism, then, does not propose a grand 
" divide.'' 

A further misapprehension concerning the nature of 
socialism is that which traces it to the vaporings of wild 
and unpractical theorists. It is essential to a compre- 
hension of the nature of socialism, to know that it is a 
system of industrial society Avhich has found advocates 
among many gifted, learned, and very practical men. 
The leaders of socialism in the present century have 
generally been men- of extraordinary capacity, placing 
them far above the ordinary man. One of the earliest 
English socialists, Eobert Owen, ivas at one time so suc- 
cessful in cotton spinning that he was called "the prince 
of cotton spinners," and he amassed a large fortune. 
The three early leaders of the modern German social 
democracy are Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Ferdi- 
nand Lassalle. Karl Marx is recognized by friend and 
foe as one of the most learned and gifted economic 
thinkers of the present century ; Friedrich Engels is 
one with whom economic philosophy must deal, and it 
is said, besides, that he has been more than ordinarily 
successful in business; while the gifts of Ferdinand 
Lassalle attracted the attention of all with whom he 
came in contact, Wilhelm von Humboldt calling him " a 



MISAPPIIEUENSIONS CONCEUNING SOCIALISM. 89 

miraculous cliild/^ and Bismarck declaring in the impe- 
rial parliament that he was one of the most gifted and 
amiable men with whom he had ever associated. Bebel 
and Liebknecht, the political leaders of the German 
social democracy of to-day, whatever we may otherwise 
think of them, have talents and qualifications which 
enable them to hold their own with the leaders of the 
other great political parties. 

Another prominent German social democrat, a manu- 
facturer, has a fortune which, it is said, places him 
among the millionnaires of his country. 

The English socialists to-day include men who were 
trained at the great English universities, and who have 
been successful in whatever they have undertaken. 
Among the extremists, we may even mention a man 
like William Morris, who was prominently spoken of 
for the post of poet laureate when it was made vacant 
by the death of Tennyson. 

Nor can it be denied that those who are giving social- 
ism its shape in Switzerland, France, the United States, 
and elsewhere, are men who must command our respect 
on account of their capacities of every sort. Whoever 
Avould understand what socialism means to-day, must 
bear in mind the unquestionable fact that it includes in 
its ranks men of practical sagacity, as well as native 
talent and learning. 

It follows, quite naturally, from what has been said, 
that socialism is not a scheme of criminals for theft and 
robbery. It can, at the present day, scarcely be neces- 
sary to dwell on this. It is worth while, however, to 
call attention to the fact that socialism is not a scheme 
of social reconstruction which meets with favor on the 
part of criminals. It is a <uirious fact, but one well- 



40 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

known by those who have given attention to crime, that 
the criminal classes are orthodox and conservative in 
their religious as well as social opinions. An exhaustive 
treatment of the reasons for this fact — which, natu- 
rally, conveys no reproach to orthodoxy of either sort — 
cannot now be given. The curious reader must consult 
works on criminal anthropology. Attention may be 
called, however, to a few characteristics of the criminal. 
He is a man who is below the average in mental capacity, 
although he may be shrewd and cunning. He has not 
that mental alertness and boldness which would lead" 
him to deviate from received opinions. Moreover, he is 
extremely superstitious, and often hopes to find exculpa- 
tion in the observance of religious forms, and has even 
been known to trust to his religion to help him in crime. 
Prayers for his success in robbery are not infrequent 
among superstitious and degraded people, and an Italian 
criminologist, who examined two hundred murderers, 
found them all religious. Naples is said to be the most 
religious city in Europe, and yet the most criminal. 
Sismondi, writing of the Italians of his day, said : ^^ The 
murderer, still stained with the blood he has just shed, 
devoutly fasts, even while he is meditating a fresh 
assassination.'^ ^ 

A well-known American wrote an article for a promi- 
nent journal during the campaign in which Mr. Henry 
George was a candidate for the mayoralty of ISTew York 
City, and attempted to estimate the number of votes 
which Mr. George might receive. This writer called 
attention to the fact that there were 20,000 criminals in 
New York City, and intimated that they would all cast 
their votes for Mr. George. The author of this book, 
1 See ** The Criminal," by Havelock EUis, pp. 156, 157. London, 1890. 



MISAPPREHENSIONS CONCERNING SOCIALISM. 41 

although not an adherent of Mr. George, felt that this 
was probably an injustice to his followers, and was led 
to make some inquiries into the political affiliations of 
criminals. He formed the conclusion that they would 
generally be found to be adherents of one of the two 
older political parties, and that for this reason, in addi- 
tion to those already mentioned, the criminal is a short- 
sighted man ; and, indeed, short-sightedness may be called 
so essentially characteristic of crime, that it is not far 
out of the way to define crime as short-sightedness. The 
criminal does not look to social reconstruction for which 
years must pass ; but, without thinking so far ahead, he 
adopts plans which will bring him gain to-day or to-mor- 
row or next day. He adheres to a party which is able 
to help him at once when he becomes involved in diffi- 
culties. He desires what is called in American politics 
a ^^ pull ; " and in consequence of this it is probable that 
in a given community he will, as a rule, belong to one of 
the two great political parties, but to that one which has 
been the stronger in his own city, or more particularly, 
perhaps, his own ward. In the prosecution of his in- 
quiries, the author wrote a letter to a gentleman who had 
long worked among the inmates of the Elmira Keforma- 
tory, and asked him whether he thought there would be 
any considerable number of Henry George men, or social- 
ists, or even anarchists, among them, and the reply was, 
that he thought not. A very interesting confirmation of 
this opinion has been given in a vote which was taken 
in the Eeformatory, Oct. 24, and 25, 1892, the purpose 
of which was to allow the inmates to express political 
preferences for president and vice-president of the United 
States. The total number of ballots cast was 909, divided 
as follows : Democratic, 401 ; Eepublican, 394 ; People's 



42 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. ' 

Party, 15 ; Prohibition, 1 ; defective, 8. It will be ob 
served that the People's Party, which approximates most 
nearly to socialism, received only fifteen votes, while not 
one socialistic vote was cast. 

It has already been mentioned that criminals are in- 
clined to be orthodox in their religious views, so far as 
they have any. Of course, the religion itself is likely to 
be a caricature of any true religion ; but so far as formid 
religious doctrines are concerned, the views of criminal^ 
harmonize with those which at a given time and place are 
customarily regarded as orthodox. Socialism proposes not 
a religious society, but an economic society, and has no 
direct connection with any peculiar religious doctrines. 
There will be found among socialists men of all religious 
views, as there will be among adherents of any other party. 
Some socialists are extremely conservative in their reli- 
gious views, while it frequently happens that among the 
most conservative adherents of the existing social order 
there will be found persons of what are called liberal, or 
even loose, religious views. It has been held by some 
that Christianity has a peculiarly close connection with 
socialism, and that is true so far as both aim to help the 
weak and to lift the fallen ; but it cannot be said that 
their means are necessarily identical. If a Christian can 
be made to believe that socialism will bring the good to 
the masses of mankind which its adherents claim for it, 
then he must necessarily accept socialism. But that is 
only to say that a Christian must be an honest man. The 
very point at issue is whether or not socialism will bring 
what it promises. If so, then no man who is upright can 
refuse to give adherence to it, when once he is convinced 
that such will be the case, Avhatever may be his religious 
doctrines. 



MlSAPPIiEIIENSIONS COiStCERNlNG SOCIALISM, 43 

Socialism often has to meet the reproach that it is hos- 
tile to the family as a social institution, and not infre- 
quently we see the statement that socialism means free 
love. If we again call to mind the fact that socialism is 
an economic system. Ave shall see that it has only an indi- 
rect connection with views concerning the family, and we 
shall not be surprised to learn that among the socialists, 
as among other people, there are those who hold different 
vicAvs concerning the marriage tie. It is necessary, how- 
ever, to dwell upon the socialistic position Avith respect 
to the family to understand fully its nature. The socialist 
to-day tells us that the modern industrial system is already 
destroying the family, and that, if it continues its opera- 
tions, the family Avill probably disappear Avithin a century. 
He claims that modern industrialism is far Avorse in its 
action upon the family than Avas slavery ; for the latter 
only exceptionally separated the members of the family, 
Avhereas the arrangements of industrial society to-day 
regularly and habitually separate husband and Avife and 
children. Our socialist points to the manufacturing 
toAvns of New England, which are popularly called " she 
towns,'^ because they consist of Avomen and children. 
And Avith these he brings in contrast the " stag camps '^ 
of the West ; namely, the logging-camps of the lumber 
districts, gold and silver mining-camps, and the boarding- 
tents of the iron ore region. The socialist has strong 
support for his claim that industrialism is destroying the 
family, and in industrial centres has already accom- 
plished a good share of its Avork, so far as homes are 
concerned. An investigator^ in the Department of 
Labor, in an address delivered before the World's Fair 
Labor Congress at Chicago, entitled, ^^The Disintegra- 
1 Mr. Ethelbert Stewart. 



44 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL HEFOUM, 

tion of the Families of the Workingmen," spoke about 
the effect of modern industry on the family. First of all, 
he called attention to the fact that divorces are increas- 
ing, and marriages decreasing, in industrial centres, and 
that without any change in the laws. It appears that 
relatively the number of marriages in Chicago has never 
since been so great as in 1873, and that the same is true 
with respect to Philadelphia. On the other hand, it ap- 
pears that the number of divorces in Pittsburg increased 
two hundred per cent between 1870 and 1880. It would 
further appear from investigations that the chief causes 
for divorce are economic. It is the necessity for the sep- 
aration of the members of the family, in order that they 
may gain support. These are the words of the speaker 
on the occasion referred to : — 

" Every one who has gone through the cotton-mill towns of 
New England and the South has seen house after house locked 
up, and little faces peering out at the windows. The mother has 
gone to work in the mill, and left her baby in the house. The 
father is working somewhere else, probably in another State. I 
submit that a family is pretty well disintegrated when this is its 
normal condition — the every-day life of the family. I have 
walked along rows of factory tenement houses, and found three 
out of five deserted by father, mother, and all the children big 
enough to work, while the babies are left to do the best they 
can." 1 

Herr Paul Gohre has written a noteworthy work, 
entitled " Three Months a Factory Hand,'' in which he 
narrates his experiences in a factory in Saxony, Ger- 
many. This Mr. Gohre was a theological student, who 
desired to see for himself the mode of life of the Ger- 
man workingmen, and to experience their life and to 

1 Mr. Ethelbert Stewart's address, delivered before the World's 
Fair Labor Congress, Aug. 30, 1893. 



MISAPPREHENSIONS CONCERNING SOCIALISM. 45 

learn from familiar every-day conversation with them 
their actual views and aspirations. The report which 
Mr. Gohre has given in his work is regarded as a re- 
markably faithful and impartial picture ; and he tells 
us, among other things, that the present economic con- 
ditions are destroying the family of the wage-earner. 
These are his own words ; — 

'* Another fact infinitely significant and ominous, which in 
daily intercourse with this class is continually forced on the 
attention, is that in consequence of these conditions throughout 
wide circles of the industrial population of our great cities, the 
traditional form of the family no longer exists. The old organ- 
ism, hased on the consanguinity of parents and children, and 
built up exclusively of one kinship, — with the sole exception, in 
the higher classes, of more or less closely associated servants, — 
has given place to-day, in the ranks of the workingmen, to groups 
of people, kindred and stranger, formed upon purely economic 
needs of a common lodging and living, and formed, moreover, by 
chance. Inclinations of relationship have plainly given way to 
economic obligations. The mother has evolved into the house- 
hold executive, who receives from husband, grown children, and 
stranger inmate alike, a fixed sum, with which she contracts to 
meet the demands of food, rent, laundry work, and the like ; as 
to clothing, each relies upon himself. 

" It is not the social democrats and their agitation who are re- 
sponsible for this : precisely these conditions are the result of our 
whole industrial system, which makes it impossible for working- 
men and their families to share their meals in common ; which 
compels them to occupy the most ill-arranged and crowded dwell- 
ings; and to admit utter strangers, often in rapid succession, to 
the most intimate family relations, such as used to be held sacred 
for the family itself. Let one but remember the dense packing 
of the * rooms,' that is to say, the family dwelling-places, in 
such workingmen' s barracks, or the old country houses altered to 
their plan; the impossibility of isolating one from the other; the 
thinness of the walls in houses so hastily constructed, that they 



46 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

permit every loifdly spoken word to be distinctly heard by the 
neighbors; the single corridor for the three or four 'rooms' on 
every story, whose use, as well as that of the water-supply, 
closets, etc., must be in common. All this leads to a promiscuity 
of daily intercourse, a publicity of family life, which is appalling 
to the beholder, and which must inevitably bring about the de- 
struction of domesticity itself. It is absolutely impossible that 
the children of such families shall not live like brothers and sis- 
ters of one blood, when the corridor is their place of common 
resort, their playground, their opportunity for confidences; that 
growing lads and girls shall not come into the closest contact 
with each other; that the men shall not find continual occasion 
for interchange of ideas, and often of blows; that the women 
shall not intimately know every nook and corner, every short- 
coming, every article of clothing and of household use among 
their neighbors; nay, more, that the common use of such arti- 
cles, as, for example, the borrowing and lending of cooking uten- 
sils, shall not introduce a distinctly communistic character into 
the housekeeping of the scantily equipped families. Add to this 
the confinement and narrowness of the individual quarters, which 
drive the men out-of-doors in the evening, into the streets and 
fields when it is possible, or into some neighbor's larger and 
better room, or the beer saloons and assembly halls. Let one re- 
member, further, how much this congestion is aggravated by the 
presence of lodgers and strangers, who bring with them their own 
customs and usages, their different manners, standards, and re- 
quirements, which, strange and often enough offensive, they yet 
express and put in practice as freely as in their own homes. Let 
one remember that these strangers leave the house with the hus- 
band and grown-up children and return with them, and habitually 
sit around the same table with them until bedtime, reading, smok- 
ing, talking, or card-playing. It is a fact that in many families 
parents and children can be together undisturbed only during the 
night, in the hours of sleep. Even the last chance of a cosey 
hour together at breakfast and dinner is constantly destroyed by 
the conditions of labor which I have described, and which make 
it impossible for father and children to go home for their meals. 
And even when this can be done, the hour's recess is only just 



I 



MISAPPIILUENSIONS CONCERNING SOCIALISM. 47 

sufficient, in my opinion, to make the double journey — in the 
nature of things a moderately long one for the workmen of large 
establishments — and to swallow the food post-haste, without 
comfort or leisure. 

" I shall speak in another place of the effect of this state of 
things on the morals, characters, and opinions of the wage-earn- 
ing class. Here I have only to state the bare fact of the com- 
plete change in character of the workman's family, and the 
causes which have brought it about* I repeat that it is, prima- 
rily, a product of our present economic conditions. These it is 
which must bear the heaviest burden of responsibility, and not 
social democracy, which, in this respect as in others, has but 
drawn the ultimate conclusions from existing premises, and form- 
ulated them into a system. The present evils are the ground- 
work and opportunity of social democracy, and its doctrine of the 
ideal future family," 

Mr. Gohre adds : — 

" We must not be blind to this fact, above all, those of us who 
represent the avowedly religious section of the community; and, 
instead of bewailing the obvious decline of the old Christian ideal 
of the family, and inveighing against social democracy, we ought 
rather to co-operate in putting an end, definitely and forever, to 
the economic causes of which the present situation is the inevi- 
table result." 1 

The socialist writer declares, then, that the present 
social order is the cause of disintegration of the family, 
and he reproaches it with having destroyed the family, 
and put nothing better in its place. '' This is what you 
are doing ! '^ he cries to the adherents of the present 
economic system. ^ 

The socialist claims that socialism will again make 

1 See ** Three Months a Factory Hand," by Paul Gohre, translated 
by A. B. Carr, soon to be published by Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein 
& Co., London. 

2 "Das Erfurter Programm," by Karl Kautsky, chapter iv. 



48 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

possible ideal love. When the author, some time since, 
in an article called attention to the fact that socialism 
did not mean free love, and carried with it no peculiar 
doctrine concerning the family, he received letters from 
two excellent young women, both Americans and so- 
cialists. One commented upon the passage in this 
language : — 

*' Serious and intelligent people surely do not need to be told 
to-day that socialism has nothing to do with free love or atheism, 
and would, I should think, resent being told it. Could not you 
mention the stigma briefly, as a thing of the past and then 
account for it historically?" 

The other, however, wrote as follows : — 

''If socialists may speak for socialism, it certainly does en- 
tertain the notion that the family of to-day belongs to the eco- 
nomic system of to-day, and that its economic foundation, that 
is, the economic dependence of the wife upon the husband, passes 
away with the rest of the economic dependence of one person 
upon another." 

What shall be said in regard to these two contradictory 
positions ? The latter position is that taken by those 
who adhere to a materialistic conception of history, 
which traces all social relations to economic conditions, 
and holds that, as the family has changed in the past, 
even so it will change in the future, as underlying eco- 
nomic conditions evolve into higher forms. This concep- 
tion of history is, however, no necessary part of socialism, 
and no socialist has claimed that there is anything higher 
than the pure monogamic marriage of man and woman 
resting upon love. Whatever view we take of the evolu- 
tion of society, it would not seem to follow of necessity 
that socialism would, if successful, do anything more 



MISAPPREHENSIONS CONCERNING SOCIALISM, 49 

than purify and elevate the family. Tlie differences 
among socialists in regard to the binding character of 
the marriage tie in the absence of love, or after it has 
disappeared, are no greater than the differences among 
other men. 



50 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 



CHAPTER YI. 
THE ORIGIN OF SOCIALISM. 

Modern socialism is the natural outcome of modern 
industrial conditions, and its origin is contemporaneous 
with the origin of those conditions. We must seek its 
beginnings in the beginnings of modern industry. We 
can express this thought differently by saying that 
modern socialism is the product of the industrial revo- 
lution. It has grown with this revolution, becoming in- 
ternational as the industrial revolution has spread over 
the nations of the world. The peculiarities of socialism 
are part and parcel of the industrial revolution itself. 

The industrial revolution was brought about by the 
series of inventions following important geographical 
discoveries. The most important of the inventions 
which inaugurated the industrial revolution took place 
about the middle of the eighteenth century, and they 
may be enumerated as follows : Kay's fly shuttle, in- 
vented in 1738, the first of the great inventions to revo- 
lutionize the weaving industry in England ; Watt's steam 
engine, invented in 1769, and applied to the manufacture 
of cotton sixteen years later ; John Hargreave's spinning- 
jenny, patented in 1770 ; the water frame of Eichard 
Arkwright, the barber's assistant, invented in 1769; 
Samuel Crompton's mule, invented in 1779; Edward 
Cartwright's power loom, produced in 1787 ; and Eli 
Whitney's cotton-gin, invented in 1793. These inventors 



THE ORIGIN OF SOCIALIlSM. 51 

may, in a sense, be called the fathers of modern social- 
ism, for without their inventions it could not have come 
into existence. 

The industrial revolution signifies rapid changes in 
the economic world. Evolution is going on continually, 
but we speak of changes as revolutionary when they 
occur with such unusual rapidity that we are not able 
readily to adjust ourselves to them. What are these 
changes which have taken place as a result of the great 
inventions named ? We can perhaps best understand 
these changes, if we look about us and reflect upon those 
things in the economic world which are new. We have 
only to go outside our own homes and use our eyes dili- 
gently in any great city, to understand what it means 
when it is said that our present economic world is more 
different from that of 1776 than the economic world of 
1776 was from the economic life of the early Oriental 
monarchies. Is it even necessary to enumerate these new 
things ? Everyone calls to mind the telegraph, the rail- 
way, the telephone, street-cars, electric lights, anthracite 
coal, petroleum, etc. We may take up the factors in pro- 
duction — land, labor, capital, and enterprise — and trace 
changes in each one, and we shall find them momentous. 
Perhaps the changes have been least important with re- 
spect to land ; yet even in land the changes are not incon- 
siderable. During this period we have witnessed, first, 
the contraction of public property in land, and then, more 
recently, the growth of public property; and, what is 
more important still, it is within this period that it has 
become possible to buy and sell land freely like com- 
modities, so that we may almost say that land itself has 
become a commodity. Slavery and serfdom have been 
abolished, and labor has been given the right of free set- 



62 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

tlement and contract. But it is with respect to capital 
that the most momentous changes have taken place, 
because it is changes in capital and the management of 
capital which have carried with them the most signifi- 
cant changes in labor itself. The changes of which we 
have spoken with respect to labor were necessary to 
enable capital to do its work ; but the chief change was 
in that force which we call capital. Capital, then, is 
that which is most significant in the industrial revolu- 
tion ; and Karl Marx showed his insight into what was 
essential when he called his book on socialism, " Capital,'^ 
and those are inferior economists who would concentrate 
attention on land rather than on capital. Capital, tak- 
ing advantage of the inventions in industry and the im- 
provement of means of communication and transportation 
brought about by these inventions, was able to extend 
production and to carry it on on a scale of increasing 
magnitude. This production upon a vast scale, ba.sed 
upon a far-reaching division of labor, became essentially 
social production. Armies of men work together in 
single or allied establishments, each one doing his own 
small part of a vast whole. Capitalistic production 
passed out of the shop and entered the factory. The 
master workman gave place to the captain of industry, 
and journeymen and apprentices to regiments of wage- 
earners. Production gradually became more and more 
socialized, and the process is still going on to-day. 

Private property in the instruments of production 
came, in the meantime, to have a new significance. 
Formerly private property in the instruments of pro- 
duction meant private property in the tools used by the 
worker. The master had not a separate and distinct 
income without direct personal toil; and capital did not 



THE ORIGIN OF SOCIALISM, 53 

separate the industrial workmen into classes. But when 
production became socialized, private property in the 
instruments of production meant a great capitalist who 
no longer toiled at the bench with his workmen, but one 
who lived in a different quarter of the town, and often did 
not know them by sight. This private property, in the 
instruments of production, became the source of a large 
income altogether separate and distinct from the returns 
to personal exertion. Now, if we add to all this that 
there has been going on an extension of political rights, 
terminating in modern political democracy and increased 
educational facilities of every sort, all resulting in larger 
demands on the part of the less favored members of the 
community, particularly those ordinarily designated as 
the lower classes, and the growing self-consciousness on 
their part, as the result of their separation from their 
employers, have we not given the conditions which must 
inevitably result in socialistic thought ? 

We have, as the consequence of the industrial revolu- 
tion, enormously increased the production of wealth, and 
that production is social, and not individual. What 
could more readily suggest itself than the socialization 
of the instruments of production, to correspond with the 
socialization of production on the one hand, and political 
democracy on the other ? It was something so obvious 
that the workers could not help demanding sooner or 
later that they should have control of industry, as they 
were acquiring control of politics ; and that they should 
have the advantages resulting from the ownership of the 
instruments of production which they used, but whicli 
advantages they saw now accruing to a distinct class ; 
namely, the capitalist class. " To tlie workers the 
tools ! " became the rallying cry, which, once uttered. 



54 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFOBM. 

was rapidly taken up, and could not cease to be echoed 
and re-echoed. The increased production of wealth 
could not, withal, fail to stimulate desire on the part of 
those who participated in that production. They could 
not see why a larger part of the advantages of increased 
production should not accrue to them. They used tools 
and machines which frequently multiplied their labor- 
power a hundred and a thousand fold; but they could 
not be brought to believe that there was any correspond- 
ing improvement in their own condition. It was not 
necessary to point this out to the toilers, for they could 
not help feeling it themselves. But when deep thinkers 
arose and formulated a system of industry which, once 
introduced, would give to the workers all the results of 
the increased productivity of labor, they were predis- 
posed to favor this system, and to take up an agitation in 
favor of the overthrow of the existing system, and the 
substitution therefor of the new industrial order. 

But this is not all. It has been said that socialism 
grew and developed with the growth and development of 
the industrial revolution. Early in this century social- 
ists proposed the establisment of small independent 
communistic societies. Each little village or hamlet was 
to be voluntarily organized, and to be relatively self- 
sufficient. The idea was that of a large household of 
equals working together as brothers and sisters, and 
producing the things which they needed for their own 
consumption. As industry became national, and then in- 
ternational, in its scope, solidarity of interests grew like- 
wise. Workingmen's organizations extended from city 
to city, and from nation to nation, and then to the whole 
civilized world. Their ideals grew fast, and, wishing to 
enjoy the fruits of modern inventions and modern indus- 



1 



THE ORIGIJSr OF SOCIALISM, 55 

trial processes, their socialism expanded from tlie village 
community to the nation, and then to the world. Social- 
ism itself, then, passed through three stages. It was 
first local, then national, and finally cosmopolitan. The 
local communistic settlement formed on a voluntary basis 
cannot enter into the advantages of a modern industry, 
and, from the standpoint of modern socialism, is held to 
be an anachronism. Yet another reflection is obvious. 
Industrial conditions are similar in all parts of the world 
which have participated in the industrial revolution. 
These similar conditions must inevitably give rise to 
similar thought. Socialism is not the only possible con- 
clusion which can be drawn from them, but it is the one 
which could not fail to be drawn ; and the absurdity of 
the ordinary talk about the importation of socialism from 
a foreign land becomes apparent. 



66 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 



CHAPTER VII. 
THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. 

Did we need any justification for the attention which 
we give to socialism, it could be easily found in the 
progress which it has been making during the past gen- 
eration. There existed early in the century a socialism 
of a Utopian type in Prance, England, and Germany. 
Erance, in particular, had a number of thinkers who 
gained a great reputation at home and abroad, and found 
followers in many lands. Cabet, Saint-Siinon, and Fou- 
rier are names which, in this connection, occur to every 
one who is at all familiar with the history of socialism. 
They had schemes more or less fantastic, but, withal, not 
devoid of keen criticism of the existing order, and shrewd 
proposals for its improvement. England had its Eobert 
Owen, a wealthy manufacturer, avIio used up a fortune 
in endeavors to establish communistic villages in Eng- 
land and America. The United States had its wave of 
Eourieristic socialism, and its Brook Farm and other set- 
tlements. Albert Brisbane, Horace Greeley, and George 
William Curtis, among other distinguished Americans, 
took part in the movement. About 1860 this early social- 
ism had well-nigh disappeared, or been absorbed by other 
socialistic movements. The co-operative movement in 
England, for example, took up the energy which had 
gone into Robert Owen's socialism, and its only outcome 
for a time seemed to be the peaceful operations of the 



THE PROGREISS OF SOCIALISM. 57 

co-operative store. Louis Blanc had before this time 
began an agitation more national in scope, and proposed 
to use the power of the state for the transformation of 
the modern competitive system into socialism. But Louis 
Blanc and his proposals appeared to be overwhelmed in 
the disasters of the Revolution of 1848. It was not 
strange, then, that a French writer about 1865 felt like 
offering an apology for compliance with a request to fur- 
nish an article on socialism for an encyclopaedia of polit- 
ical science. Socialism, he said in effect, is something 
which is now dead and gone; but, after all, it has curious 
historical interest which may justify the present article. 
Scarcely was the ink dry on his manuscript, however, 
before the world began to hear something of a German 
named Ferdinand Lassalle. Fascinating in manner, 
admired alike by men and women, fiery and eloquent, 
he soon began to rally about him the workingmen of 
Germany. The newspapers said that socialism could 
not get a foothold in Germany. Socialism was some- 
thing, it was urged, which might appeal to the restless 
Frenchman, but could make no headway against the 
solid common sense and contentment of the educated, 
but patient, German toiler. Ferdinand Lassalle was 
undoubtedly drawing his materials in part from the ar- 
mory of Louis Blanc, and it was natural that socialism 
should be said to be a foreign importation, and not some- 
thing which could naturally appeal to Germans. Yet 
the impossible happened. Ferdinr?nd Lassalle died a 
romantic death, but his followers revered his memory 
and took up his work. 

In the meantime there had come into Germany an 
influence proceeding from Karl Marx and Friedrich 
Engels, then living in London, but native Germans, who 



68 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

had become involved in the revolutionary troubles of 
1848, and had been obliged to flee their fatherland. The 
socialism of Lassalle was more distinctively national in 
character, while this new influence was more cosmopol- 
itan, and less inclined to operate upon a strictly national 
basis. Quarrels and dissensions between the factions 
were a source of satisfaction to the enemies of German 
socialism, but soon they united, and since then they have 
worked together. The progress of socialism in Germany 
has been almost uninterrupted from the beginning, and 
has been entirely without parallel in such radical social 
movements. This progress has taken place in spite of 
opposition of all sorts, both private and public. Laws of 
Draconian severity passed against the social democracy, 
and enforced relentlessly, have served only to strengthen 
and unite the party. The social democrats returned 
eight members to the parliament of the North German 
Federation in 1867. At the first election after the for- 
mation of the German Empire they returned two mem- 
bers and cast nearly 125,000 votes. The votes increased 
to nearly 500,000 in 1877, when the number of seats in 
parliament gained by the party was twelve. Owing to 
an attempt on the life of the German Emperor, a slight 
reaction took place in 1878, the party losing some 60,000 
votes and three seats in parliament. At the next election 
the social democrats suffered under the influence of the 
special laws passed against them, and lost over 100,000 
votes, although they gained three seats in parliament, as 
their votes were so concentrated that they were more 
effective. From that time until the present, the number 
of votes cast by the social democrats has increased with- 
out interruption, and in 1890 they became numerically 
the strongest party in the empire, casting nearly 1,500,000 



THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. 59 

votes. They retained tlieir position as the strongest party 
in the empire in the elections of 1893, casting nearly 
1,800,000 votes, and electing forty-four members of par- 
liament, a far smaller number than proportional repre- 
sentation would give them, as their votes were more 
scattered than those of the other parties.^ 

Of course this means less than it would in a country 
like the United States or England, because there are 
a dozen or more political parties in Germany. Another 
indication of the growth of social democracy, is the fact 
that it has gained a foothold among the students of 
the universities, and that there are formal social demo- 
cratic organizations in several important German univer- 
sities. These students held a meeting to discuss their 
plans for pushing social democracy, in Geneva, Switzer- 
land, in December, 1893. 

Next to Germany, England is probably the country 
where socialism is strongest. It has not made itself felt 
to a great extent as a separate political party, but has 
influenced all the parties, and is producing a powerful 
impression upon the thought and legislation of England. 
It has participated in local elections, and its candidates 
have been successful in many instances. London is not 
only the greatest city in England, but the greatest city in 
the world ; and it is governed by a County Councul, the 
majority of whose members, if not avowed socialists, at 
any rate act consciously under a pronounced socialist 
influence. Socialistic thought is a force which to-day is 
governijig London, although, of course, it must be re- 
membered that London alone is so restricted by national 

^ See Appendix for full statistics showing the projijress of German 
social democracy. A chart is also added, giving a graphic represen- 
tation of the advance social democracy has made. 



60 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

legislation, that it cannot carry out anything like a full 
socialist program. Yet the drift is unmistakable. Two 
illustrations will suffice. The London County Council 
has recently acquired some twenty-one miles of street 
railways (tramways), and proposes to operate these lines. 
While the ownership and operation of municipal mo- 
nopolies does not, of necessity, mean socialism, — while, 
indeed, an anti-socialist may favor such ownership and 
operation, — the significant point is that in London the 
change was brought about by socialist intent, and as 
part of a socialist program. The second illustration is 
found in the abolition of the contract system in the con- 
struction of artisans' dwellings by the municipality. 
The municipality has had for some time the power to 
erect dwellings for artisans, but it had been in the habit 
of employing contractors in its operations. The aboli- 
tion of the contract system means a determination on 
the part of the municipality to organize and carry on the 
work itself ; and this change is also effected because it is 
in the direction of socialism. 

Perhaps equally important has been the changed atti- 
tude of the English workingmen. The newspapers of 
England indulged in talk concerning the relations of 
English workingmen to socialism, precisely like that 
found at an earlier date in the German newspapers 
respecting the relations of German workingmen to social- 
ism. Socialism, it was alleged, was a Continental poi- 
son which could not make headway in England. Its 
workingmen were too prosperous, it was alleged, and, 
moreover, they were too little inclined to indulge in 
philosophical speculation to follow the vague and in- 
definite ideas looking to a remote future prosperity. 
England, it was claimed, was the classic land of common 



THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. 61 

sense. The English trades unions, once dreaded, now 
began to receive praise, and were looked upon as bul- 
warks of conservatism. For some time, indeed, they 
seemed to merit the praise which was meted out to 
them; but more and more they have fallen under the 
influence of socialistic thought, and at the last trades 
union congress, held at Belfast in September, 1893, a 
program for political action was adopted which was 
nothing less than pure socialism. A motion requiring 
candidates for Parliament receiving financial assistance 
to pledge themselves " to support the principle of collect- 
ive ownership and control of all the means of produc- 
tion and distribution,'^ was carried by a large majority. 
Moreover, an Independent Labor Party was formed in 
January, 1893 ; and its object, as stated in the constitu- 
tion as amended in February, 1894, is "The collective 
ownership and control of the means of production, dis- 
tribution, and exchange.'^ Its president is Mr. Kier 
Hardie, M.P. 

Modern socialism has required time to gain a firm 
foothold in France. Early Utopian socialism was practi- 
cally dead in 1860. During the last decade of Napo- 
leon's reign there was no strong socialistic movement, 
although the International Workingmen's Association 
made itself known and felt in France. The uprising of 
the Paris Commune was only partially socialistic. It 
was only during the latter part of its history that the 
socialistic elements began to make themselves promi- 
nent. But this uprising was suppressed, and a frightful 
slaughter of the masses ensued, in which it is said that 
the larger proportion of the revolutionary population 
was slain. Socialism did not play any role in the early 
history of the republic, and severe laws sought to sup- 



62 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

press it. Many conditions, moreover, were unfavorable 
to the growth of socialism. One of these was the gener- 
ally unsettled condition of society following upon the 
revolutionary movement. Troubled times are more fa- 
vorable to schemes for a violent overthrow of existing 
institutions than to the development of organized and 
systematic efforts at a gradual and peaceful reconstruc- 
tion of society. It may be said in a general way that 
social tranquillity is favorable to socialism, and a politi- 
cally unsettled condition is favorable to anarchy. More- 
over, for a time, the character of the French masses did 
not seem to be sufficiently stable and thoughtful to fur- 
nish a good soil for socialism. It appeared to be more 
receptive to the propaganda of revolutionary violence, 
and to schemes for the overthrow of the existing system 
and the establishment of a new order in a night. The 
continued existence of the republic has given France a 
longer period of domestic peace than she has known 
since the great revolution of the last century, and the 
marvellous development of educational institutions in 
France has furnished a better instructed people as a soil 
for a social philosophy, which at least requires some con- 
siderable intellectual capacity and effort for its compre- 
hension. A group of students began the publication of 
a socialistic paper in 1876 ; and Jules Guesde, who at one 
time had been inclined to favor anarchy, but had become 
a socialist, founded a '^ collectivistic '^ labor party in 
1879. Collectivism, it may be remarked in passing, is a 
designation of socialism which is common in France. 
Shortly afterward, another convert from anarchy. Dr. 
Paul Brousse, joined Guesde. It may be said that 
by 1880 modern socialism had gained a firm foothold in 
France. The development was slow for a time, and in 



THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. 63 

1889 the socialists cast only 91,000 votes out of a total 
of 6,847,000, or 1.30 per cent. Two years later, however, 
they cast 549,000 out of a total of 6,275,000 votes, that 
is to say, nearly nine per cent.-^ But it was in 1893 that 
France was astonished by the success of the socialists in 
the election for members of the French Assembly. In 
that year they succeeded in increasing the number of 
their deputies from fifteen to fifty, becoming thus, as in 
Germany, a great political party. They have become so 
strong that they do not seem to have been injured by 
the tendency to reaction necessarily following upon the 
explosion of the dynamite bomb thrown among the 
French deputies by the recently executed anarchist, Vail- 
lant, and the attempts to make the people of France 
regard the socialists as responsible appear to have been 
fruitless. This unquestionably means a great deal. 

It is also significant that Paris, the second city of the 
world in size, is, like London, under the government of a 
socialist municipal council, and that some five or six 
other French cities are governed by municipal councils, 
the majority of whose members are either avowed social- 
ists or are socialistically inclined. 

The students of France, like those of Germany, seem 
to be more or less receptive to socialism ; for a socialistic 
society was formed in the student quarter, the well- 
know^n Latin Quarter, of Paris in 1891, and it seems to 
have displayed considerable activity since that time.^ 

An essential feature of the growth of socialism in 
France is the development of what we may, relatively at 
least, designate as conservatism. It is probably on this 

1 *'Der Capital ismus fin de siecle," by Rudolph Meyer, p. 477. 

2 See Appendix for a statement concerning the present condition 
of socialism in Franco. 



64 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

account, as well as on account of greater familiarity with 
socialist plans, that socialism appears to be less dreaded 
now than formerly. The author of the report on France 
issued by the English Royal Commission on Labor de- 
scribes the change in public opinion in these words : — 

'^ Whatever may have been the meaning originally attached in 
France to the word socialism, and whatever may be the precise 
body of doctrine to which it may be applied at the present time, 
it is certain, as a writer in the Revue Des deux Mondes in 1890 
pointed out, that it has lost part of the significance of something 
' violent and somewhat offensive that it had formerly.' All par- 
ties alike in France are agreed as to the fact of the change." ^ 

The other European countries require less attention. 
Modern socialism began to make itself felt in Belgium 
in 1876, when Dr. Cesar de Paepe, a former anarchist, 
who had become an adherent of Karl Marx, began an 
agitation among the workingmen of that country, and 
established a social democratic party, at first containing 
two factions, which united in 1879 and formed a political 
socialistic party, with a program much like that of the 
German social democracy. Socialism in Belgium ha,s 
been connected with remarkable co-operative societies 
which have achieved a rare success, and at the same time 
have been used as centres of socialistic activity. The 
two best known of these are the Vooruit of Ghent and 
the Volkshaus of Brussels. The suffrage has heretofore 
been so restricted in Belgium that it has been confined 
to persons of wealth, and the wage-earners have had no 
chance to make themselves felt in politics. But during 
the past year the socialists began a tremendous agita- 

1 Royal Commission on Labour's Foreign Reports, vol. vi., France, 
London, X893, p. 10. 



THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. 65 

tion to secure universal suffrage, and developed one of 
the most remarkable agitations of modern times. They 
threatened a universal strike, and so alarmed the public 
authorities that something approximating universal suf- 
frage was established. It remains to be seen what use 
socialism will make of this new condition of things in 
Belgium. 

Holland has not been so prominent in modern social- 
ism as Belgium ; but it has an educated and able leader 
in Domela-Nieuwenhuis, and of late there seems to have 
been indications of at least a moderate growth of social- 
ism in Holland. In 1893 the socialists gained control 
for the first time of the municipal council of a Dutch 
city, namely Beesterzwaag, in which they have eight 
out of fifteen municipal councillors.^ 

Of the Scandinavian countries, Denmark and Sweden 
alone have displayed any considerable socialistic activ- 
ity, although socialism has made some little progress in 
Norway, where, however, the backward industrial con- 
dition has been unfavorable to its growth. The Danish 
socialists after various reverses became strong in the 
eighties, and they have succeeded in gaining a following 
among the agricultural laborers, as well as among the 
artisans of the towns. Their principal organ. Social- 
Demokraten, has a large circulation, and, according to 
the last account accessible to the author, they have four 
members in the Rigsdag, namely, two each in the Folke- 
thing and the Landsthing. Socialism has, during the 
same period, made considerable, but less, advance in 
Sweden, where it has a strong central organ, also called 
Soclal-Demokraten. 

Socialism has developed slowly in Austria, where it 
1 See the Revue Social iste for September, 1893. 



66 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

has had to contend against anarchy ; but of late, under 
the leadership of Dr. Victor Adler, an adherent of Marx, 
it has become stronger. Although Austrian socialism 
is still weakened by dissensions and by anarchy, it is 
claimed that the labor movement in this country is essen- 
tially social-democratic. Socialism undoubtedly begins 
to be felt as a force in Austria, although far weaker 
than in France, Germany, or England. 

Switzerland is politically the most democratic country 
in the world. It is certainly far more democratic than 
the United States, and it is a country in which social 
reform has proceeded more rapidly than in any other 
country, unless it may possibly be England. Switzer- 
land has been the home also of foreign agitators and 
socialists from all parts of the world; and yet pure 
socialism, while it doubtless has its adherents, has never 
become a very prominent political factor. It seems that 
social and political reforms which are within the reach 
of the people have, in the main, absorbed their energy, 
and diverted into peaceful channels the social current 
which in other countries has become revolutionary. 

The Latin countries generally have furnished a less 
favorable soil for socialism than the Teutonic countries. 
The masses have been more ignorant, and, on account of 
their temperament perhaps, more receptive to a propa- 
ganda of anarchistic violence than to socialistic philoso- 
phy. It is generally, if not universally, found that where 
socialism is strong, anarchy is weak ; and where anarchy 
flourishes, socialism languishes. Socialism has, however, 
at last gained a footing among the agricultural laborers 
and the artisans of the towns in Italy ; and in 1892 a 
program was drawn up which resembles, in the main, 
the programs of the other countries mentioned. Of 



THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. 67 

twenty-five socialistic candidates who stood for parlia- 
ment in this year, four or five were elected; and in the 
local elections of 1893 several socialist candidates were 
successful, the party finding support in all parts of the 
kingdom. The socialist press is reported to be in a flour- 
ishing condition, and it includes a scientific review called 
La Cintica Sociale} 

Socialism has made itself felt in Spain and Portugal, 
in the former of which countries it gained its first polit- 
ical success in 1891, when five socialists were elected 
to local legislative bodies in the northern part of the 
country ; four of them being elected to membership in 
the municipal council of Bilbao. Socialism has, how- 
ever, in these countries, gained no great strength, although 
apparently growing in both. 

Russia has been the natural home of a propaganda of 
violent social reconstruction, and this has been the natu- 
ral outcome of the impossibility of popular agitation and 
participation in political life. The political despotism 
of Eussia seemed to lend countenance to the idea that 
what was first of all needed was a violent overthrow of 
existing institutions. But of late there seems to be in 
progress a socialistic agitation in Kussia which seeks to 
influence the industrial population of the cities. It is 
not surprising to be told that the leaders of Russian 
socialism live in foreign countries. 

Socialism is known and is working elsewhere in 
Europe, but has not become a great force. The coun- 
tries to which reference is made are those in the southern 
portion of Europe which are more or less Asiatic in their 



1 Cf. Report of the Royal Labour Commission on the Labour 
Question in Italy, London, 1893, p. 21. 



68 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

characteristics, and in which the industrial development 
has been slow.^ 

What shall be said about socialism in the United 
States ? The earlier socialism was destroyed by our 
Civil War ; but soon after that ceased, foreigners, coming 
to this country from France and Germany, endeavored 
to plant the seeds of socialism in our wage-earning popu- ; 
lation. The socialists of Germany established the Social- 
istic Labor Party in the seventies, and this continues to 
the present day. It early entered into political life, and 
has in recent years been active in several parts of the 
country, putting up a presidential candidate at the last 
election. The number of votes cast for the candidates of 
the Socialistic Labor Party has recently increased consid- 
erably, and yet the number is so small as in itself to have 
no significance. The leaders of the party, however, ex- 
press themselves as hopeful, and believe that now they 
have gained a firm foothold, from which they cannot be 
dislodged. Early adherents were won among the 'for- 
eign population, but of late they have made more head- 
way among the American-born wage-earning population. 
They have also exercised more influence than would 
at first appear, because they have given a socialistic di- 
rection to the thought of the labor leaders of the country. 
Their adherents enter into the labor organizations, and 
edit labor papers which are not avowedly socialistic, and 
yet advocate what is essentially socialism. What this 
party may do in the future is, of course, uncertain; but 
it cannot be granted that, up to the present moment, they 

1 In regard to the present condition of socialism in these countries, 
see the exceUent article on Sozialdemokratie, by Georg Adler, in the 
Handvwrterbuch der Staatswisseiischaften, edited by Prof. J. Conrad 
and others. 



THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. 69 

have exercised a strong influence, likely to have a lasting 
effect on the country. 

Mr. Edward Bellamy wrote " Looking Backward '^ in 
1888. This socialistic work soon attained an enormous 
circulation, selling for a time at the rate of a thousand 
copies a day. This was the beginning of the American 
socialism which has been called nationalism. National- 
ist clubs were started in all parts of the country, from 
Boston to San Francisco. Newspapers in the interest of 
the agitation sprang up almost daily ; and the leaders 
hoped in a few years to carry everything before them. 
The movement, as a separate and distinct force, began to 
grow weaker some two years since, and has seemed to 
decline almost as rapidly as it rose. Nationalism has, 
however, exercised a great influence upon American 
thought, and has not been without effect upon legisla- 
tion, particularly in Massachusetts, for important laws 
can be traced to the agitation of the nationalists. They 
have very generally entered into the Populist move- 
ment, not because they accept that in its present form 
as ideal, but because that movement has seemed to give 
them the best opportunity for the diffusion of their prin- 
ciples ; and there can be no doubt that they have given 
a socialistic bias to this movement. They have also 
influenced the labor movement, and, with the Socialistic 
Labor Party, they have succeeded in producing a strong 
sentiment in favor of independent political action on 
the part of wage-earners. Especially noteworthy was the 
platform for independent political action offered at the 
meeting of the American Federation of Labor in Chicago 
in December, 1393. That platform was referred to the 
bodies represented for consideration, with the under- 
standing that it would come up for action at the next 



70 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL UEFOUM. 

annual meeting of the Federation, which, is the largest 
labor organization in the United States. The president 
of the American Federation of Labor, Mr. Samuel Gom- 
pers, has, in the meantime, expressed the opinion that 
independent political action was likely to be taken at an 
early day, and that it would be along the lines of this 
platform, which reads as follows : — 

POLITICAL PROGRAM. 

Whereas^ The trade unionists of Great Britain have, by the light 
of experience and the logic of progress, adopted the principle 
of independent labor politics as an auxiliary to their economic 
action, and 

Whereas^ Such action has resulted in the most gratifying success, 
and 

Whereas^ Such independent labor politics are based upon the 
following program, to wit : — 

1. Compulsory education. 

2. Direct legislation. 

3. A legal eight-hour work-day. 

4. Sanitary inspection of workshop, mine, and home. 

5. Liability of employers for injury to health, body, or life. 

6. The abolition of the contract system in all public work. 

7. The abolition of the sweating system. 

8. The municipal ownership of street cars, and gas and 

electric plants for public distribution of light, heat, 
and power. 

9. The nationalization of telegraphs, telephones, railroads, 

and mines. 

10. The collective ownership by the people of all means of 

production and distribution. 

11. The principal of the referendum in all legislation. 

Therefore, Besolved, That this convention hereby indorses this 
political action of our British comrades, and 



THE PBOGHESS OF SOCIALISM, 71 

Besohed, That this program and basis of a political labor 
movement be, and is hereby, submitted for the consideration of 
the labor organizations of America, with the request that their 
delegates to the next annual convention of the American Federa- 
tion of Labor be instructed on this most important subject. 

Nationalism has influenced far more considerably than 
the socialistic labor party the professional classes of the 
country, and particularly the clergy. 

It must be stated, in conclusion, that it is extremely 
difficult to estimate precisely what strength socialism has 
in the United States at the present time. The opinions 
of observers will differ according to their wishes with 
respect to the growth of socialism. Nevertheless, no 
thoughtful and impartial person can fail to acknowledge 
that socialism has, in the United States, become a force 
which is more likely to increase in strength than to de- 
crease, and one which cannot be ignored, but one with 
which we must deal. 

It is not consistent with the purpose of this book to go 
into details in regard to socialism in every part of the 
world, as Australia and Canada. But we may say that 
socialism is known wherever modern industrial civili- 
zation exists. It is one expression of this industrial 
civilization ; not the only one to be sure. It is an inter- 
pretation of this industrial civilization which may not be 
correct, but which was nevertheless inevitable. 

Socialists themselves like to compare the growth of 
socialism to that of Christianity in its early stages. Dif- 
ferent as are the two, the comparison is not altogether 
inappropriate. Both have found their chief strength 
among the masses, and they have grown with marvellous 
rapidity, althougli the growth of socialism, it must be 
confessed, has been the more rapid. They have both 



72 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

spread from nation to nation, and been international and 
cosmopolitan in character. They both demand universal 
dominion, and their progress has not been stopped by 
persecution. On the contrary, imprisonment and death 
seem to give new zeal to their adherents. Socialism has 
become, as well as Christianity, a religion to many, and 
o le devotion which it has awakened is something which 
nothing short of a religious force is able to arouse. 
Surely, all these facts not only justify, but demand, that 
the most careful attention should be given to this new 
and mighty power which has come into the world. 



THE EVIDENCES OF SOCIALISM. To 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE EVIDENCES OF AN AliLEGED IRRESISTIBLE 
CURRENT OF SOCIALISM. 

The various kinds of modern socialism have been 
divided into two main classes, — ethical systems and a 
non-ethical system. The ethical systems are those which 
make prominent the appeal to ethical sentiment. The 
advocates of these ethical systems of socialism attempt to 
show that the present order works cruelty and injustice, 
and that the socialism which they urge men to adopt will 
establish righteous relations among men, and thus pro- 
mote human welfare. They think that an exposition of 
the benefits of socialism, and an appeal to the consciences 
of men, are the forces which are needed to bring about the 
new social order. The earlier systems of socialism were, 
it may be said, mainly ethical in this sense. Exhortation 
played an important role in these, for they were urged upon 
men much as religion is. The non-ethical system is not to 
be understood as anti-ethical. The expression non-ethi- 
cal means simply that the ethical element plays no part 
in the production of anticipated changes. These changes 
come as the result of natural laws working in society. 
Man observes these, and he discovers the necessary 
results of their operation. The most which any individ- 
ual can do is to work with these social forces, possibly 
accelerating them somewhat, and rendering the transi- 
tion from an earlier to a more advanced stage of society 
a less painful and an easier one than it would otherwise 



74 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFORM. 

be. This non-ethical socialism is that of which Karl 
Marx is the founder. It is claimed by his adherents that 
he has found a law of evolution working in society like 
that which Darwin found in the natural world ; and, in 
their opinion, the two great intellectual lights of this 
century are Karl Marx and Charles Darwin. The ethical 
element plays almost, if not wholly, as subordinate a part 
in this socialism as in the Darwinian natural science. 
A materialistic conception goes with this theory of social 
evolution, and forms an essential part of it. It makes 
every social advance depend upon the development of the 
economic sphere. In this extreme form, it makes reli- 
gion and the family, art and literature, products of the 
mode of producing, exchanging, and distributing material 
wealth. This idea of historical evolution was brought 
forward as early as 1847 by Marx and Engels, in the 
celebrated " Manifesto of the Communist Party.'' Engels 
states the fundamental proposition which forms the nu- 
cleus of the Manifesto in the preface to the English edi- 
tion of 1888 in these words : — 

** That proposition is: that in every historical epoch the pre- 
vaiUng mode of economic production and exchange, and the 
social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis 
upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, 
the political and intellectual history of that epoch." 

In the Manifesto itself we find the following words : — 

"Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's 
ideas, views, and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, 
changes with every change in the conditions of his material sub- 
sistence, in his social relations, and in his social life ? What else 
does the history of ideas prove than that intellectual production 
changes its character i^ proportion as material production is 
changed ?" 



THE EVIDENCES OF SOCIALISM, 75 

It is the development of economic society, then, which 
is producing the ideas of our time. The ideas are effect 
and not cause. ^ 

When we adopt this materialistic conception of history 
our socialism becomes entirely a matter of evolution 
going on in the social world. This socialism is, from its 
author, often called Marxist socialism, and it is that 
which is dominant in Germany. At the same time, it 
must be acknowledged that the German social democrats 
are not entirely true to this theory of evolutionary social- 
ism. While they give evolution a large place, they do 
introduce an ethical element, and appeal most earnestly 
to the wage-earning masses to help forward the socialistic 
movement. Their action is based upon an assumption of 
will, free, and not bound wholly, at any rate, by social 
laws. One of the leaders of the German social democ- 
racy, in a recent work giving an excellent succinct sum- 
mary of the German socialistic philosophy, says that 
socialism is necessary, because men are men with incli- 
nations and capacity to struggle for the attainment of 
their desires. The evolution of society is such, he claims, 
tliat we must, in the future, either have barbarism or 
socialism ; and, taking men as we find them, we know 
they will choose socialism, and they will shape their 
action in accordance with their choice.^ 

The evolution which is inevitably bringing socialism 
is that which may be briefly described as the develop- 
ment of competing industries into monopolies ; and this 

1 Cf. this statement in the *' Erfurter Prograinm,'* hy Karl Kautsky: 
" In the last instance the history of mankind is determined, not by 
the ideas of men, but by the development of economic society.'* P. 38. 

2 ** Das Erfurter Program m," by Karl Kautsky, pp. 131-145. Der 
Aufbau des Zukunftsstaates. 



76 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFOBM. 

development, the socialists maifitain, is destined to be- 
come practically universal and all-inclusive. The social- 
ists trace the development of industry from the Middle 
Ages, in which production was carried on in small shops, 
and the tools were owned by the workers. The private 
ownership of tools and of land is held to be proper to 
industry on a small scale. This period of small industries 
is followed by a period of manufactures, distinguished 
from the present period, called the period of modern or 
grand industry. The period of manufactures lasted, it 
is stated, from the middle of the sixteenth to the last 
third of the eighteenth century, when the period of grand 
industry began. ^ 

The period of manufactures is characterized by the 
employment of artisans by a capitalist, who assembles 
them in one workshop and organizes their industry. 
There arises in this period the distinct capitalistic and 
employing class, separated by a wider and wider gulf from 
the growing wage-earning, or proletarian *class.^ The 
development of concentration of production, however, 
is slow until we enter the period of modern industry, 
when it begins to move at an accelerating rate of speed, 
which continually increases, exhibiting finally its true 
nature in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This 
development will proceed until we have complete con- 
centration of production, it is claimed by socialists ; and 
the only choice will be between concentration under 
private and irresponsible, and concentration under public 
and responsible, management. This concentration of pro- 
duction, finally amounting to unification, demonstrates^ 

1 See " The Student's Marx," by Edward Aveling, p. 73. 

2 Proletarian class is now used to designate a class of wage-earners 
not owning the tools with which they work. 



THE EVIDENCES OF SOCIALISM. 77 

according to the socialistic law of evolution, the possi- 
bility of socialism. But this evolution does more than 
demonstrate the possibility of socialism; it shows its 
necessity, for along with this growth of concentration in 
production under private management, the advantages 
of increasing productivity accrue to a small class, while 
the lot of the great masses becomes more and more in- 
tolerable. There grows up what is called an industrial 
reserve army of unemployed men vainly seeking work. 
This army naturally depresses w^ages at all times. 
Periods of prosperity cannot exhaust it entirely, and thus 
they do not bring that increase in the rate of wages 
which would otherwise take place ; and periods of depres- 
sion swell the army to enormous proportions, and render 
the lot of the masses a more hopeless one than before. 
Production is carried on vigorously ; but this implies a 
public with purchasing power, if production is to continue. 
Now, it is precisely characteristic of modern industry that 
the purchasing power of the masses, relatively at least, 
declines, and less and less keeps pace with the growth of 
production. Consequently there must be a relative over- 
production as well as a relative over-population, as seen in 
the industrial reserve army. Goods pile up until the 
result is a crisis, and consequent industrial stagnation. 
Now, as the powers of production increase, crises must 
become more and more frequent, more and more lasting, 
until we can scarcely hope to escape from one period of 
industrial stagnation before we are overtaken by another 
crisis. This capitalistic law of development, it is held, 
becomes intolerable, and the change to socialism becomes 
also easy, because it is simply necessary to change the 
management of production, and develop it a little further 
to attain the socialistic state. If we have, for example, 



78 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFORM, 

a complete monopoly in any line of the business the first 
change, and the great change, necessary to render this 
socialistic is to change the manager ; ^^ to expropriate the 
expropriateurs/' to use the phrase of Marx. This is 
easier because the workers have become an army trained 
and disciplined to act together ; and, moreover, an army 
of men among whom common experiences, common trials, 
and common sorrows have produced a deeper and deeper 
feeling of solidarity. The historical development of 
society is sketched by Friedrich Engels in his work, 
"The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Sci- 
ence."^ The most recent and authoritative statement, 
however, is that which is found in the '^Erfurter Pro- 
gramm," the first words of which, ^^ The economic develop- 
ment,^' are specially significant. It reads as follows : • — 

*' The economic development of industrial society tends inevit- 
ably to the ruin of small industries, which are based upon the 
workman's private ownership of the means of production. It 
separates him from these means of production, and converts him 
into a destitute member of the proletariat, whilst a comparatively 
small number of capitalists and great landowners obtain a mo- 
nopoly of the means of production. 

" Hand in hand with this growing monopoly goes the crushing 
out of existence of these shattered small industries by industries 
of colossal growth, the development of the tool into the machine, 
and a gigantic increase in the productiveness of human labor. 
But all the advantages of this revolution are monopolized by the 
capitalists and landowners. To the proletariat, and to the rapidly 
sinking middle classes, to the small tradesmen of the towns and 
the peasant proprietors (Bauern), it brings an increasing uncer- 
tainty of existence, increasing misery, oppression, servitude, 
degradation, and exploitation (^Ausbeutung). 

1 An English translation is published in Sonnenschein's Social 
Science Series. Another translation may be had from the office of 
the newspaper, The People, 184 William Street, New York, 



THE EVIDENCES OF SOCIALISM. 79 

**Ever greater grows the mass of tlie proletariat, ever vaster 
the army of the unemployed, ever sharper the contrast between 
oppressors and oppressed, ever fiercer that war of classes between 
bourgeoisie and proletariat which divides modern society into 
two hostile camps, and is the common characteristic of every in- 
dustrial country. The gulf between the propertied classes and 
the destitute is widened by the crises arising from capitalist pro- 
duction, which become daily more comprehensive and omnipotent, 
which make universal uncertainty the normal condition of soci- 
ety, and which furnish a proof that the forces of production have 
outgrown the existing social order, and that private ownership 
of the means of production has become incompatible with their 
full development and their proper application. 

'^ Private ownership of the means of production, formerly the 
means of securing his product to the i^roducer, has now become 
the means of expropriating the peasant proprietors, the artisans, 
and the small tradesmen; and placing the non-producers, the capi- 
talists, and large land-owners in possession of the products of 
labor. Nothing but the conversion of capitalist private owner- 
ship of the means of production — the earth and its fruits, mines 
and quarries, raw material, tools, machines, means of exchange — 
into social ownership, and the substitution of socialist production, 
carried on by and for society in the place of the present produc- 
tion of commodities for exchange, can effect such a revolution 
that, instead of large industries and the steadily growing capaci- 
ties of common production being, as hitherto, a source of misery 
and oppression to the classes whom they have despoiled, they may 
become a source of the highest well-being, and of the most perfect 
and comprehensive harmony. 

" This social revolution involves the emancipation, not merely 
of the proletariat, but of the whole human race, which is suffer- 
ing under existing conditions. But this emancipation can be 
achieved by the working class alone, because all other classes, 
despite their mutual strife of interests, take their stand upon 
the principle of private ownersliip of the means of production, 
and have a common interest in maintaining the existing social 
order. 

" The struggle of the working classes against capitalist exploita- 
tion must of necessity be a political stru<^gle. The working classes 



80 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

can neither carry on their economic struggle, nor develop their 
economic organization, without political rights. They cannot ef- 
fect the transfer of the means of production to the community 
without first being invested with political power. 

** It must be the aim of social democracy to give conscious 
unanimity to this struggle of the working classes, and to indicate 
the inevitable goal." 

A less extreme position in regard to evolution is taken 
generally by the English Socialists, especially by the 
Fabians; and this less extreme position seems, to the 
author, one which gives socialism in reality a far stronger 
case. The modern socialist does not think that a plan of 
social reconstruction can be drawn up out of his own 
inner consciousness, and then introduced purely by per- 
suasion. He holds that we must observe carefully the 
tendencies of social evolution, and shape our plans with 
reference to these. He claims that the evolution of 
society which is taking place, — chiefly spontaneously, 
so far as society at large is concerned; that is to say, 
without any self-conscious effort to bring it about, — is 
entirely favorable to socialism, and that socialism other- 
wise could not exist. At the same time, he is not in- 
clined to think that the development in the future must 
necessarily take one single form, or that it will be satis- 
factory without self-conscious social effort. He does not 
adopt the materialist conception of history, but gives 
room for the play of conscience, and to the conscience 
he does not hesitate to appeal. The more conservative 
socialists see many evidences of the break-down of the 
present social order, showing the necessity of changes, 
and they observe evidences of a current set in the direc- 
tion of socialism. Among these evidences may be men- 
tioned, of course, first of all the tendency towards 



THE EVIDENCES OF SOCIALISM, 81 

monopoly, as evidenced by combinations, rings, and 
trusts, and the concentration of wealth of all kinds in 
a few hands. The growing solidarity of labor, which 
is becoming national, international, and even cosmopol- 
itan, is adduced as a further evidence. The incompe- 
tency of the captains of industry to perform their 
functions with respect to the continuous production of 
goods, and their inability to preserve their command 
over the industrial army, is to them a strong proof that 
a change must come, and that socialism is the natural 
outcome of the present system. We are asked to direct 
our attention to great strikes, like those which have taken 
place at Buffalo, Chicago, and elsewhere, and to see in 
these proof positive of the incompetency of the captains 
of industry, an incompetency for which they as individ- 
uals are not necessarily to blame, but an incompetency 
which arises out of the nature of modern industrial so- 
ciety. It would be held, unquestionably, that something 
was wrong in an army, if the commanders were not able 
to preserve order, and to perform the functions which 
naturally belong to them as leaders who are to conduct 
the army to victory. Crises and industrial depressions 
are held by all socialists to be a proof of the break-down- 
of the present industrial system, and an evidence of the 
need for radical social reconstruction. 

Socialists generally attach importance to the moral 
wretchedness of society, as seen in divorces and em- 
bezzlements and defalcations, both in private and public 
life ; because they hold that society at the present day is 
so constituted that these iniquities are its natural and 
almost inevitable outcome. Men cannot be honest, we 
are told, and maintain themselves in the business world. 
Private business, it is maintained, uses public office for 



82 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

its own ends, and disgraces public life. Competition in 
business rules the mass of men, and is transferred to 
competition in expenditures. Everyone desires to make 
a greater show than his neighbor. This leads to extrav- 
agance, this to wild speculation, and this to embezzle- 
ment. The end is seen in wide-spread ruin. Families 
are disrupted in this way among the higher orders, as 
the needs of industry separate them among the poorer 
portion of the community. It is claimed by socialists 
that all this trouble is too deep-seated to be cured by 
any reform which leaves the present industrial order 
unchanged in its essential features. 

As socialism is expected to come as the result of evo- 
lution, to a greater or less extent brought about and 
guided by the wishes and intelligence of men, it is not 
anticipated by the modern socialists that it will come 
all at once. No one expects to go to bed one night under 
a capitalistic regime and to wake up next morning with 
socialism in full swing. It is held rather that socialism 
will come piecemeal, althoiigh the active and ardent 
socialists do unquestionably anticipate that large instal- 
ments will come in the comparatively near future, and 
that these will be followed by other large instalments 
with considerable rapidity. Naturally it is thought that 
large monopolistic undertakings will be socialized first, 
and business after business will be absorbed as it be- 
comes monopolistic. It is not, by the most moderate fac- 
tion, proposed to take over business conducted on a small 
scale, unless those so conducting it desire to give up their 
business and enter into the co-operative commonwealth. 
The small farmer and the artisan working in his own 
little shop may continue their operations as long as they 
are able to do so, and desire to do so. At the same time- 



THE EVIDENCES OF SOCIALISM. 83 

it is undoubtedly expected that the })rocess of concentra- 
tion of businesses will be continued and accelerated when 
something like genuine socialism is well under way. 
Socialism proposes to carry forward existing industrial 
tendencies, but to direct the industrial movement in such 
manner that it may yield the greatest good to the greatest 
number, and so that the present evils of these tendencies 
may be altogether avoided, or reduced to an inconsider- 
able minimum. Consequently it is frankly admitted 
that the small producer will be less and less able to hokl 
his own against socialistic production. It is urged, how- 
ever, that even now he is being ruined by the competi- 
tion of great undertakings, but has no refuge except the 
lot of the wage-earner, unless he chooses to become a 
small retail shopkeeper, or the proprietor of a restau- 
rant, to use a German expression for what we would call 
in the United States a saloon-keeper, having an insignifi- 
cant hotel attachment, that is to say, maintaining a pre- 
carious existence on the fringe of economic society. It 
is held, on the other hand, that socialism would prove an 
attractive force, and that the small producers would 
gradually surrender their businesses and enter some 
branch of socialist production, so that the expropria- 
tion of the small capitalist would take place without 
the suffering which at present accompanies it. 

An interesting question is whether the transformation 
will take place with or without compensation. The more 
conservative and sensible socialists desire that it shall 
be as easy as possible to all concerned, and they do not 
all deny the possibility of compensation in consumption 
goods, in values to be used, tliat is, in consumption, but 
for which there would be little opportunity to find pro- 
ductive employment, and thus yield income. The Fa- 



84 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

Man Society of England desires that the change should 
go forward without payment for capital and land, that 
is to say, the instruments of production generally, hold- 
ing that this cannot be required by ethical considera- 
tions; but they think that the extinction of private 
property in land and capital should not be effected with- 
out relief to expropriated individuals.^ 

Another interesting question of great importance is 
whether the changes proposed by socialism are to be 
accomplished peacefully. It may be said, in general, 
that socialists earnestly hope that peaceful and legal 
measures will be sufficient. Some, however, hold that 
the opponents of socialism, that is to say, in the main, 
the privileged classes, will rebel against the constituted 
authorities, when they once clearly perceive that these 
are exercising their power in behalf of the socialistic 
state. Yet there are those who hold that socialism is 
already stealing upon us unawares, and that its approach 
will be sufficiently gradual and beneficent to meet with 
more and more favor, and thus anticipate no violence, 
even from the higher orders of society. Perhaps it can 
be said, in general, that the English socialists are the 
least apprehensive that the transformation will be ac- 
companied by anything like civil war. 

1 Appendix II., " Basis of the Fabian Society." 



i 



SOCIALISM WITH OTHER SCHEMES, 85 



CHAPTER IX. 

SOCIALISM CONTRASTED WTTH OTHER SCHEMES 
OP ZNDUSTRIAL CHANGE. 

Socialism in the popular sense is often brought into 
opposition with what is called state socialism. Refer- 
ence has already been made to state socialism, and it is 
not necessary to add many words to what has been said 
regarding it. State socialism is an expression which 
originated in Germany, and refers to reforms to be ac- 
complished by the existing state, with a view to the 
establishment of permanent social peace. State social- 
ism, as viewed in Germany, may mean the absorption of 
the production and distribution of wealth by the state, 
or it may mean a further extension of the industrial 
activity of the state without going so far. But, at any 
rate, it does not propose radical changes in the state 
itself. Social democracy, which is, generally speaking, 
socialism in the popular sense, is socialism plus democ- 
racy; but state socialism in Germany is socialism plus 
monarchy, and is therefore conservative. The social de- 
mocracy advocates a class struggle to be conducted by 
the wage-earning class, and to be continued until it is 
able to abolish all classes. State socialism proposes tliat 
a power above the people shall regulate the relations 
among classes, and establish among them harmony and 
peace. If state socialism goes so far as to propose that 
the state should take upon itself the production and dis- 
tribution of wealth, it contemplates still the existence of 



86 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL EEFOBM. 

higher and lower classes, and would transform the cap- 
tains of industry into superior civil servants, still guid- 
ing and managing production. Social democracy, on the 
other hand, wants the administration of the economic 
state to be conducted democratically in such manner 
that it may confer substantially equal benefits upon all. 
A leader of German social democracy says that state, 
socialism is a name proper only to those interferences 
of the state, or extensions of the functions of the state, 
^^ which aim to make an end to the class struggle between 
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and to reconcile social 
classes by means of a strong monarchical political power, 
which, standing above the classes and independent of 
them, gives to each one its own. This activity of the 
power of the state is designed to make it unnecessary, or 
even impossible, that the proletariat should represent 
and care for its own interests. The intention is rather 
that, full of conhdence, it should commit its interests to 
the government.'' 

This same writer says that state socialism presupposes, 
as an essential characteristic, the existence of a govern- 
ment, independent of the masses.^ 

It is difficult, then, to see how, according to the leaders 
of social democratic thought in Germany, the expression 
state socialism would have any particular applicability 
in democratic countries. At the most, the protest against 
state socialism in these countries can mean that political 
as well as economic changes are required to bring about 
the socialistic ideal. It is, however, admitted by all 
socialists that the present state is not anywhere entirely 
satisfactory. If it is held that, from the standpoint of 

1 Die Neve Zeit, X. Jahrgang, II. Band, s. 706; Karl Kautsky in 
Ills article, *' Vollmar und der Staatssozialismus." 



SOCIALISM WITH OTHER SCHEMES, 87 

socialism, there is class government in democratic coun- 
tries like the United States, as well as in Germany, the 
question is to be asked, What is the basis of this class 
government, except private property in the instruments 
of production, and will it not disappear if private prop- 
erty in the instruments of production is transformed into 
public property in these instruments ? Of course, in 
Germany, class government has a far broader basis. 

Socialism and nationalism are two expressions which 
require some treatment, because the use of these two 
terms produces an endless amount of confusion. Nation- 
alism, it may be said, is simply one kind of socialism ; 
and if there is any such thing as a distinctive American 
socialism, it must be held to be nationalism. National- 
ism contemplates, perhaps, fewer changes in the state, — 
using the word state in its generic sense, — than does 
social democracy, represented in this country by the 
socialistic labor party. Nationalism is, in this respect, 
more conservative. It proposes to use, in the main, the 
existing political divisions of the country, although Mr. 
Bellamy contemplates the wiping out of the separate 
commonwealths as distinct political divisions. This, 
however, is no necessary part of either the nationalistic 
or the socialistic program, and it would seem to have 
been a bad slip on Mr. Bellamy's part, weakening his 
cause. Nationalism, as it has been presented in this 
country, is also clear and explicit as to equality in distri- 
bution; but this can hardly be put forward as a pecu- 
liarity. Perhaps the greatest difference of all, between 
the socialistic labor party and nationalism, is found in 
the fact that nationalism does not present socialism as a 
class movement. The socialistic labor party makes social- 
ism a movement of the wage-earning classes, whereas 



88 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL HMFOMM. 

nationalism appeals to all classes, and hopes to avoid 
class struggles. Nationalism has found its adherents 
to some considerable extent among the professional 
classes, and the spirit and the method with which it has 
conducted its agitation of socialism distinguish it from 
the socialistic labor party to a greater extent than differ- 
ences in final program.^ 

Socialism is often contrasted with Christian socialism, 
and we frequently hear it said we must either have 
socialism or Christian socialism. It is to be feared, 
however, that the expression. Christian socialism con- 

1 A prominent nationalist sends the author the foUowing statement 
of principles: ''Nationalism is logically formulated state socialism. 
It completes the scheme of democracy by making the plan of political 
equality practicable through the institution of economic equality. It 
places political freedom upon its correct basis of economic freedom. 
It solves the problem of an equitable distribution of the industrial pro- 
ducts which, under the capacity of modern mechanical processes, are 
potentially sufficient to meet the requirements of all mankind, by 
transferring the ownership of the instrument of production from 
private hands — which now operate them primarily with reference to 
personal profit, and only secondarily with reference to public service — 
to the producers themselves, thus organizing production and distribu- 
tion as national functions, conducted solely with reference to the public 
welfare — the instrumentality of the government being what Mr. Bel- 
lamy has so aptly declared to be *the hand of the people.' To attain 
these ends the nationalist plan is to encourage all tendencies towards 
augmenting the business efficiency of the community, whether national, 
state, or municipal. There appears to be no means of equitably appor- 
tioning the returns from indj^strial production among the members of 
the community — owing to the impossibility of determining the share 
to which each is entitled — on any basis of merit or effort. An equal 
division of the products, therefore, appears to be demanded on ethical 
grounds; and, as under a national organization of industry there would 
be ample to meet all demands for not only the necessities, but th^ 
comforts and the reasonable luxuries of life, there would be no hard- 
ship or injustice in such an apportionment. But as this is the ulti- 
mate aim, it can only be stated as an ideal, and does not form a feature 
of any immediate program." 



SOCIALISM WITH OTHER SCHEMES. 89 

veys no very clear ideas, and is such that it is not easy to 
define it with any accuracy. Christian socialism means 
many different things. One thing which it always means 
is a spirit of brotherly love, which, it is insisted, is an 
essential part of Christianity. Christian socialism means 
that we are invariably to make our Christianity some- 
thing real and vital, and to govern our lives by it seven 
days in the week, and on the market, as well as in the 
church building. Christian socialism carries with it a 
protest against the sham and hypocrisy which play such 
large parts in the lives of professed Christians. Christian 
socialism, furthermore, teaches us the doctrine of social 
solidarity, which signifies that our interests are all inter- 
twined, and that one cannot be truly prosperous while* 
others suffer.^ What can we say more than this about 
Christian socialism as a whole ? If these characteristics 
are all we can say of Christian socialism as a whole, is 
it not something entirely vague and indefinite when we 
come to its application to economic problems ? The 
vital question, of course, is : How shall we apply these 
principles of brotherhood to the world's business ? 

The Christian socialism of the middle of the century 
in England meant a co-operative commonwealth to be 
attained through voluntary effort. But Christian social- 
ism sometimes means simply modern socialism plus 
Christianity, the implication being that Christianity of 
itself leads to socialism. Of course, whether Christian- 
ity does lead to socialism or not must depend upon the 
view which we take with respect to socialism. As has 
already been said, the Christian who thinks that social- 

i ** While one man remains base, no mmi can be altogether great 
and noble." This utterance of Margaret Fuller is entirely in the 
spirit of Christian socialism. 



90 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

ism will bring what its adherents promise must, of 
course, become a socialist. But the whole question at 
issue is whether or not socialism is able to keep its 
promises. Sometimes Christian socialism means social- 
ism with a protest against the materialism which the 
Marxists have most unfortunately associated with social- 
ism. It may also have reference to methods of agita- 
tion, and mean that only those methods will meet with 
approval which are compatible with Christian ethics. 
Christian socialism would thus imply a protest against 
violent measures. But as socialists have generally re- 
nounced anything but peaceful, legal, and constitutional 
methods. Christian socialism as thus used would not 
scarry with it anything very distinctive. It would seem, 
perhaps, best to drop the use of the expression Christian 
socialism as something which leads to confusion rather 
than to clearness of thought, unless, indeed, accompany- 
ing the expression, some clear explanation of it be given. 
A few other distinctions require explanation to bring 
out current misapprehensions, and to render socialistic 
thought clearer by way of contrast. Socialism is often 
described as paternalism. Probably no objection to so- 
cialism is, in the United States, more frequently heard 
than that it is paternalism. This is, beyond all doubt, a 
misapprehension. Most of' those who have used the ex- 
pression paternalism employ it altogether in a loose way, 
which lacks definite and precise meaning. Paternalism 
in government is an historical conception which became 
important in the seventeenth century in England. The 
controversy between Sir Eobert Filmer and the philoso- 
pher Locke was one which concerned paternalism in the 
true sense of the word. It was a controversy regarding 
the nature of sovereignty, and it did not at all concern 



SOCIALISM WITH OTHER SCHEMES. 91 

the extent of the functions of government. Sir Eobert 
Filmer held that the power of sovereignty was like that 
of the father of the family, and was in fact derived from 
Adam, who was the first sovereign as well as father, and 
that through the patriarchs it descended to kings. Fil- 
mer's work was called " Patriarch a, or the Natural 
Power of Kings. ^' Its character is indicated by the 
titles of the three chapters into which it is divided. 
These titles are as follows : Chapter I., That the First 
Kings were Fathers of Families ; Chapter II., It is Un- 
natural for the People to Govern or to Choose Governors; 
Chapter III., Positive Laws do not Infringe the Natural 
and Fatherly Power of Kings.^ It would seem, then, 
that those are historically inaccurate who use *^ pater- 
nalism " as if it had reference to the functions of govern- 
ment. They are also illogical when they use the word 
paternalism to describe the activity of a democratic 
state, because in a democracy the people themselves ex- 
ercise power, and the state does not exist as something 
separate and distinct from them. There has become 
current, however, a kind of paternalism which meets 
with much favor on the part of many. It is the pater- 
nalism of the rich and powerful.^ 

There are those who look to leaders of wealth and 
culture to provide for the people many things which the 
people need. These adherents of paternalism hold that 
rich men should furnish the people of the United States 

1 Locke's ** Essay on Civil Government " was a reply to Patriarcha ; 
the two are printed together in Morley's Universal Library. 

2 An editorial writer in one of the leading weeklies of the United 
States has expressed liimself favorably to the paternalism of tlie rich, 
and has given it as his opinion tliat tlie American people are willing 
to tolerate any amount of paternalism of this sort. It is lioped that 
this is not entirely correct. 



92 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

with universities, with art galleries, with educational 
institutions of all sorts, and take the lead in every kind 
of social activity. The people are not to help them- 
selves through government, but are to wait quietly until 
it pleases some wealthy person to give them the things 
which they want. It has also become customary in 
many parts of the country in all large business under- 
takings to wait upon the movements of a few leaders of 
large means ; and the masses of the people are, in too 
many sections of the country, losing that enterprise and 
initiative which it was claimed characterized the early 
Americans. 

Whatever other accusation we may bring against so- 
cialism as actually presented to-day by its active leaders, 
it is not true that it favors paternalism, either through 
governments or by the rich. Karl Marx early told the 
workingmen that they must look to themselves for eman- 
cipation, and warned them not to expect or to seek help 
from other classes. Socialistic agitation has laid ex- 
treme emphasis upon self-help, and the wage-earners 
have been estranged by the social democratic agitation 
from persons of wealth and social power of other kinds 
who could render them valuable service in their efforts 
to improve their conditions. 

Socialism and anarchy are often confounded, although 
they are different enough, and, as a matter of fact, social- 
ists and anarchists are most bitter enemies. Every- 
where socialism fights anarchy, and, on the other hand, 
is antagonized by it. Where the one is strong, the other, 
as already stated, is likely to languish. Social democ- 
racy drove John Most out of Germany, and from early 
days has exerted itself most vigorously to keep down 
anything like an anarchistic movement. The weakness 



SOCIALISM WITH OTHER SCHEMES. 93 

of anarchy in Germany is to be attribnted more largely 
to the efforts of the social democracy than to any other 
force. Anarchists, when discovered, are regularly ex- 
pelled from the conventions of the social democrats in 
Germany, and they were expelled from the International 
Socialistic Convention in Brussels in 1891, and again in 
Zurich in 1893. So much about the facts of the case. 

So far as the anarchistic theory is concerned it may 
be said that it desires the co-operative commonwealth 
to be attained by the abolition of all government. It 
resists authority as the chief evil. It holds that the co- 
operative commonwealth would spontaneously come into 
existence, if it were not possible, through government, 
for one man to exercise authority over another man. 
This anticipation the socialists look upon as Utopian, 
and they dread above everything the anarchistic agita- 
tion against existing governments. The anarchists re- 
frain from participation in government, and seek its 
overthrow ; while the socialists take part in the exist- 
ing governments, and seek to accomplish their ends by 
constitutional and legal measures. One moves in one 
direction and the other in the opposite direction; and 
it is not strange that the socialistic labor party not long 
ago published a tract entitled, "Anarchy and Socialism 
Antagonistic Opposites.^^ ^ 

Socialism may be contrasted with voluntary co-opera- 
tion, especially as presented by the early English Chris- 
tian Socialists ; that is, Ludlow, Hughes, Vansittart 
Neale, Charles Kingsley, and others. Co-operation, as 
a scheme of social reconstruction, seeks the co-operative 
commonwealth ; but it hopes to attain this in the main 

1 The Fabian Society has recently published a tract called ** The 
Impossibilities of Anarchism." 



94 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

without the aid of government, and hopes that using 
institutions as they exist, by industry and thrift the 
workers may acquire the instruments of production and 
organize production themselves, carrying it on at their 
own risk. It has been hoped that co-operative under- 
taking would follow co-operative undertaking, until all 
industry should be absorbed, and the workers should 
enjoy the benefits resulting from ownership of land and 
capital, and from the management of business. The ad- 
adherents of voluntary co-operation, who, it must be 
acknowledged, are not now very numerous, like the an- 
archists, do not propose to establish a co-operative com- 
monwealth through government, but through voluntary 
efforts ; but, on the other hand, they do not antagonize 
existing institutions and governments as hostile to their 
plans. 

Land nationalization, so much discussed, is simply one 
plank in the platform of the socialists, and socialists 
only antagonize it when it is presented as something 
complete and sufficient. The single tax, however, which 
is the expression used to indicate the plans of Mr. Henry 
George and his followers, is still farther removed from 
socialism. What the single tax proposes in itself, as we 
have already seen, is to tax out of land the value which 
is due to social effort ; to deduct the value of the land 
itself as distinct from improvements on the land, but to 
leave the cultivation and other utilization of land to pri- 
vate effort. The recent development of the single taxers 
in the United States has been in the direction of individ- 
ualism ; but elsewhere, as in Australia and New Zealand, 
it appears that the single tax has been combined with 
other measures to which the socialists could give ap- 
proval, and that it has not in these countries assumed 



SOCIALISM WITH OTHER SCHEMES. 95 

the anti-socialistic cast which it has at present in the 
United States. 

Socialism, finally, must be contrasted with social reform. 
The two often favor similar measures, and are confounded 
by loose observers ; but the more carefully one looks into 
them, the greater appears the difference. Socialists 
themselves have come to see this ; but it has not been so 
generally perceived by the more pronounced opponents 
of socialism. Social reform has been called by a German 
writer ^' Positivism," to indicate its positive constructive 
nature. It does not hold that an entire social reconstruc- 
tion is necessary, but believes that much which has been 
done in the past, and is incorporated in the existing soci- 
ety, is very good ; and it proposes the careful development 
and improvement of existing institutions. Social reform 
does not find any one panacea for social evils, but holds 
that remedies are numerous, because society is many- 
sided and complex. Social reform views with favor what 
socialists and adherents of the panaceas generally look 
upon with impatience as mere patchwork. Social reform 
looks to the church and voluntary associations of men, as 
well as to the state, for further growth and improvement. 
Social reform is very generally willing to extend the 
functions of government, and is not unfrequently Avilling 
to go so far as the socialization of monopoly ; but it does 
not see the desirability of the socialization of the entire 
industrial field. Social reform is conservative, and not 
revolutionary. 



96 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 



CHAPTER X. 
THE lilTERATURE OF SOCIALISM. 

The writings of socialists of recognized standing are 
the primary sources of information concerning socialism. 
Modern socialism exists nowhere in actual practice, and 
consequently we cannot study socialism in action. We 
may observe, on the one hand, certain forces actually at 
work in society which throw some light on the industrial 
reconstruction proposed by socialism, and, on the other, 
we can direct our attention to the agitation of socialists 
which aims to bring about the realization of their aspira- 
tions. While we can derive help in understanding the 
nature of socialism from existing social tendencies, and 
from an examination of socialistic agitation, the works 
written by socialists can alone give us full and complete 
information at first hand. There are certain men who 
are acknowledged to be socialist leaders, and there are 
books which are recognized by socialists as correct ex- 
positions of socialism. The spoken utterances of social- 
ists and their writings are decisive concerning modern 
socialism. The careful student will wish to go to the 
original sources of information. 

The chief writer of modern socialism is unquestionably 
Karl Marx, and his principal work is ^^Das Kapital," 
frequently called "the Bible of socialism.'' The position 
which Marx occupies is also illustrated by the state- 
ment of a socialist that "socialism is a religion and 
Marx is its Luther." One volume of Marx's " Kapital " 



Th^ literature of socialism. 97 

was published before liis death, and the second was pre- 
pared for publication after his death, from his manu- 
scripts, by his friend, Friedrich Engels ; the third volume, 
likewise prepared by this friend, is expected to appear 
soon. Karl Marx is regarded, even by many who are not 
socialists, as one of the greatest thinkers of the century, 
and few others have influenced the development of eco- 
nomic thought as he has. His work is largely a chain 
of deductive reasoning, and is difficult reading, but it 
must be mastered by him who would thoroughly under- 
stand what the socialism of to-day is. Marx, unfortu- 
nately, attached to socialism certain things which do not 
belong to it as an industrial system, for he made social- 
ism a philosophy of every department of social life. 
This is a natural consequence of his materialistic con- 
ception of history, to which reference has already been 
made. Unfortunately his followers in Germany and 
other countries have not yet been able to emancipate 
themselves from his materialistic conception of history 
as a natural evolution determined by economic condi- 
tions. Socialism, to the strict Marxist, means a con- 
ception of religion, of literature, and of science, as well 
as of an economic philosoj^hy. It is thus that socialism, 
in countries like Germany, has raised needless antago- 
nism, because it has seemed to be opposed to Christianity 
and to many received institutions which have no neces- 
sary direct connection with industry. Nevertheless, Marx 
must be studied carefully, even to understand the social- 
ism of those who reject his materialism and all that goes 
with it. It is true that in socialism Karl Marx occupies 
a position like that of Adam Smith in the history of 
political economy, all going before him in a manner 
preparing the way for him, and all coming after taking 
him for a starting-point. 



98 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

The first volume of " Das Kapital/' whicli is in a 
measure complete in itself, has been translated into 
English by Mr. William Moore, a friend of Marx, and 
by Dr. Edward Aveling, Marx's son-in-law. The transla- 
tion has been edited by Friedrich Engels, and it may be 
taken to be a faithful rendering of the original. 

Many expositions of Marx's views have been published, 
but perhaps the two most noteworthy are " The Student's 
Marx," by Dr. Aveling, and " Karl Marx' Oekonomische 
Lehren," by Karl Kautsky. It is noteworthy that Dr. Ave- 
ling has also prepared a work called " The Student's Dar- 
win," because this is an illustration of the fact that the 
German socialist assigns a position in social science to Karl 
Marx like that which Charles Darwin holds in natural 
science. Dr. Aveling, however, who is a specialist in 
natural science, does not hesitate to assign a higher posi- 
tion to Marx. The following words are taken from Dr. 
Aveling's preface : 

''Marx was more universal. Darwin was a man given up to 
biological, or at the most, scientific work in the restricted sense 
of the word. Marx was, on the other hand, master in the full- 
est sense, not only of his special subject, but of all branches of 
science, of seven or eight different languages, of the literature of 
Europe. He knew and loved all forms of art — poetry and the 
drama most of all. . . . Another difference between the two 
men, with the advantage on the side of the economic philosopher, 
is that he was not only a philosopher, but a man of action. Marx 
was an active leader of men and of organizations. Thousands of 
workers of both sexes and of all lands, who may never read a 
line of his philosophic writings, know him and love him as a prac- 
tical revolutionist who, more than any other, helped to make the 
working-class revolt of the nineteenth century, and who as long 
^s he lived took an active and informing part in it." ^ 

1 Pages ix., x. 



THE LITERATURE OF SOCIALISM, 99 

Friedrich Engels is, next to Marx, the most important 
man in the history of German social democracy. While 
he generously ascribed the chief originality in the so- 
cialistic philosophy to Marx, it is held by some of his 
friends that he is the more systematic thinker. Marx 
and Engels, however, worked together, and it is prob- 
ably impossible to tell just what each one may owe 
to the other. The Manifesto of the communist party, 
issued in 1847, is their joint product and is one of 
the chief original documents in the history of modern 
socialism.^ 

The principal works of Engels are : "Lage der arbeit- 
enden Klasse in England, in 1844," published in Eng- 
land in 1845, two years before the Manifesto was issued. 
This work has been translated by Mrs. Florence Kelley 
with an appendix written in 1886 and a preface in 1887, 
and it was published in the latter year.^ The second is, 
" Entwickelung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wis- 
senschaft," translated into English and published under 
the title, '' Socialism, Utopian and Scientific." ^ The 
third is ^^ Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums 
und des Staates." 

August Bebel, one of the two great political leaders of 
the German social democracy at the present day, has 
written a work which forms an important part of the 
literature of German socialism. It is called " Die Frau 
und der Sozialismus." * An early edition of this work 

1 An English translation, edited and annotated by Friedrich 
Engels in 1888, is published by the New York Labor News Co., 
64 East Fourth street, New York, and by William Reeves, London, 
1888. 

2 New York, John W. Lovrll & Co. It has also been published in 
Eno^land by William Reeves, London. 

3 Sonnenschein, London, 1892. * Stuttgart, 1801. 



100 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

has been translated under the title, " Woman in the 
Past^ Present, and Future." ^ 

The works named, if carefully studied, will give one 
a very correct knowledge of the fundamental principles 
of German socialism ; but one who would imderstand it 
fully as it exists to-day would do well to read the clear 
and concise exposition of the present platform or pro- 
gram of German social democracy by Karl Kautsky. It 
is called ^' Das Erfurter Programm.'' ^ 

Die Neue Zeit^ a weekly magazine of scientific social- 
ism, will be found helpful to anyone who wishes to go 
into minute details, and to follow the progress of the 
movement, especially so far as its theoretical aspects are 
concerned. Der Vorwarts is the chief daily organ of the 
social democratic party, and gives particular details of 
the agitation. 

A professor in the law school of the University of 
Vienna, Dr. Anton Menger, has written works which are 
of importance in modern socialism, especially because 
they view socialism from the legal standpoint. Atten- 
tion is called to the two following treatises by Dr. Men- 
ger : " Das Eecht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag," ^ and 
"Die besitzlosen Volksklassen.'' ^ 

There are two other writers who are of great importance 
to those who would understand the evolution of socialistic 
thought in Germany, although their works are not received 
as authority by the social democratic party. The first is 
Karl Rodbertus, often called Rodbertus- Jagetzow, a man 

1 Published in New York by John W. Lovell & Co., 1886, and in 
England by the Modern Press, London, 1885. 

2 Stuttgart, J. H. W. Dietz, 1892. 

3 Second revised edition, Stuttgart, 1891. 

* Second corrected edition, Tiibingen, 1890. 



THE LITERATURE OF SOCIALISM. 101 

of conservative tendencies, who is regarded as one of the 
leaders of the state socialists. There can be little doubt, 
however, that the active socialists of Germany and of 
other countries have been influenced directly by his writ- 
ings, the principal one of which is " Zur Beleuchtung 
(ler Sozialen Frage,'^ but " Das Kapital " may also be men- 
tioned. The other writer is Ferdinand Lassalle, who, un- 
like Eodbertus, entered actively into the working-class 
agitation. Ferdinand Lassalle played an important part 
in the formation of a working-class party in Germany, 
but what was peculiar in his thought and his methods 
has finally been rejected by the social democratic party, 
which, nevertheless, holds him in honor. A complete 
collection of his writings has been prepared under the 
auspices of the party, and edited by one of its leaders, 
namely, Eduard Bernstein, and published in three vol- 
umes in Berlin in 1892, with the title, "E/Cden und 
Schriften.'' This edition is accompanied by notes and 
an introductory essay upon "Lasalle and His Signifi- 
cance for the Social Democracy." This essay and the 
notes are especially instructive, because they show the 
difference between the earlier and the present socialistic 
thought and agitation in Germany. 

French writers seem not to have added much that is 
essential to the theory of socialism. They may have 
adapted it better to French conditions and French 
thought in working it over, but one who is looking for 
new principles or new measures will scarcely find them 
in French works. French writers are often inclined to 
lay special emphasis upon the development of local self- 
government, but this can scarcely be called a peculiar 
feature. Among active French socialist authors, we may 
mention the son-in-law of Marx, Laf argue, who has writ- 



102 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

ten a work on " The Evolution of Property/' which has 
been translated into English and into German.^ 

Two French socialist authors of note, recently deceased, 
are Cesar de Paepe and Benoit Malon, whose most im- 
portant theoretical work is, perhaps, "Socialisme Inte- 
gral." The most important source of information in 
regard to French socialistic thought is found, however, 
in the monthly magazine. La Revue Socialiste, which has 
appeared since 1885. 

The thought of Marx was early presented to readers in 
all countries and in all languages by many different 
authors. Mr. H. M. Hyndman, for example, wrote a 
work, " The Historical Basis of Socialism in England,'^ ^ 
published in 1883 ; and Laurence Gronlund wrote '^ The 
Co-operative Commonwealth," in 1884,^ in which he pro- 
fessed to present German socialism as it appeared after 
it had passed through the mind of one who had learned 
to think and feel as an American. These works appeared 
before socialism had gained much headway, either in 
England or in the United States. They have influenced 
socialism in these two countries, and are still important. 

English socialism, as presented by the Fabians in the 
" Fabian Essays in Socialism," ^ has become emancipated 
from the materialistic philosophy of Karl Marx, which, 
as essentially un-English as well as un-American, could 
not fail to prove a great obstacle to the growth of social- 
ism among the English-speaking nations. The " Fabian 
Essays in Socialism '' give us a genuine English social- 

* The English edition is published in Sonnenschein's Social Science 
Series. 

2 Kegan Paul, London, Publisher. 3 Lee & Shepard, Boston. 

4 Published by the Fabian Society, 276 Strand, London, and by the 
Humboldt Publishing Co., New York. 



THE LITERATURE OF SOCIALISM. 103 

ism, practical, straight-forward, divorced from excres- 
cences which have no connection Avith socialism as an 
industrial system. The ^^ Fabian Tracts " ^ are also im- 
portant sources of information concerning English social- 
istic thought and action. Mr. Sidney Webb's " Socialism 
in England''^ belongs to this same school of socialism 
and must not be overlooked by the careful student. The 
periodical organ of the Fabians is called Fabian News.^ 

The Social Democratic Federation is the only social- 
istic party in England, besides the Fabians, working on 
a national scale. Mr. Hyndman is one of its leaders, 
and, in addition to the work of his already mentioned, 
there may be added, ^^The Commercial Crises of the 
Nineteenth Century." ^ The organ of this party is Jus- 

1 PubUshed by the Fabian Society, and can be had either separately 
or in bound form. 

2 In Sonnenschein's Social Science Series, Second Edition, 1893. 

8 The following quotation from a letter, written by one who is well 
acquainted with the facts of the case, shows the number of channels 
through which socialism reaches the English newspaper reading pub- 
lic: " With regard to the three jmpers, the Chronicle, the Sun, and the 
Star, copies of which I sent you, I am afraid those individual num- 
bers contained little indication of their collectivism. I will try to 
send you other copies which contain clearer indications of the lines 
they adopt. All three are, of course, out-and-out supporters of the 
Progressive Party in London, and a Progressive is of necessity a 
practical socialist, since the Program adopted by their party is that 
set forth in Webb's London Program. Hence we view with con- 
siderable satisfaction the appointment of Lord Rosebery as Premier, 
as he is an undoubted member of the Progressive Party, and, as you 
will have noticed, has consented to receive an address from the party 
in a few days at St. James's Hall, when he will make a public declara- 
tion on London aiTairs. The other papers referred to are mostly 
rather obscure ones, and bring out their socialism in a somewhat in- 
direct fashion. Probably fifty or sixty members of the Fabian Society 
are editors or journalists of one sort or another, and they let no oppor- 
tunity slip of working in their ideas." 

4 Sonnenschein's Social Science Series, London. 



104 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

tice,^ at present in its eleventh year. The party has also 
issued a series of social democratic tracts.^ 

The works of T. Kirkup, an English author, deserve 
mention. They are, " An Inquiry into Socialism " ^ and 
a " History of Socialism." ^ The significance of these 
books lies in the fact that they give statements of social- 
ism which seem, to the author of the present work, to 
be as conservative as socialism possibly can be. 

Mr. Bellamy's "Looking Backward'^ and his organ, 
The New Nation, which has recently ceased to appear, 
constitute the chief sources of information concerning 
Anierican nationalism. The People is the English organ 
of the socialistic labor party, and that, with the German 
socialistic periodical. Die Volks-Zeitung, gives full in- 
formation concerning the movements of that wing of 
socialism in the United States which is represented by 
this party. 

We have already seen that Christian socialism is some- 
thing with varied and indefinite meaning ; but the litera- 
ture which is described under that designation is impor- 
tant to the student of socialism, because it reveals the 
ideas of at least a section of the church with respect to 
the social questions of the day, and also to socialism 
itself. Perhaps one of the best works, giving one a tol- 
erably correct picture of that somewhat vague and elu- 
sive spirit called Christian socialism, is Miss Katharine 
Pearson Woods's interesting novel, "Metzerott, Shoe- 
maker." ^ Another American work which is thought by 
some to give the best statement of Christian socialism in 

1 Published in London by H. Quelch, 37a Clerkenwell Green, E.G. 

2 These can also be obtained from the office of Justice. 
8 London, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1887. 

* London and Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black, 1892. 
6 T. Y. Crowell & Co., Boston and New York. 



THE LITERATURE OF SOCIALISM. 105 

its modern applications is, " Socialism from Genesis to 
Revelation/' by the Eev. F. M. Sprague. The Eev. 
Alfred Barry's " Christianity and Socialism " is also a 
noteworthy book in this connection.^ An address on 
socialism, delivered before the Hull Church Congress in 
1892, by the Eev. Dr. B. F. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, 
should not be overlooked.^ Most important of all, to 
those who would keep pace with socialism, is The Eco- 
nomic Review, published quarterly at Oxford by the 
Christian Social Union. Dr. Stewart Headlamps monthly 
periodical, 2'he Church Reformer, is also an exponent of 
certain Christian socialist tendencies.^ The organ of 
Christian socialism in the United States is The Dawn, 
edited by the Eev. W. D. P. Bliss, and published by the 
editor at Eoslindale, Mass. 

Protestant German Christian socialism has had two 
periods of activity. The first centred about the persons of 
Pastor Eudolph Todt and Court Pastor Adolf Stoecker, 
and was, to some considerable extent, the product of the 
former's celebrated work called, " Eadical German So- 
cialism and Christian Society" {^er radikale deutsche 
Sozialismus und die christliche Gesellschaft, 1877). Court 
Pastor Stoecker has given an excellent exposition of 
his views in his collected ^^ Addresses and Essays."^ 
The second period was the product of the awakening 
due more largely than to any other work, to Paul Gohre's 
remarkable work, " Three Months a Factory Hand," to 
which reference has already been made. The centre 

* Cassell, London, 1890. 

2 Printed as an appendix to Rev. P. W. Sprague's Christian 
Socialism, and also publislied separately by W. Reeves, London, 1890. 

3 Published by William Reeves, 185 Fleet St., London, E. C. 

4 Published under the title, ** Christlich-Sozial," Bielefeld and 
Leipsic, Velhagen & Klasing, 1885. 



106 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

of this new activity is found in the annual gatherings of 
the Evangelical Social Congress, and the reports of this 
congress furnish information in regard to what is going 
forward in Germany along the lines of Christian social- 
ism under Protestant auspices.^ The monographs issued 
under the auspices of this Evangelical Christian Congress 
are also noteworthy.^ 

The Catholics have of late, displayed great activity in 
the discussion of economic questions, and in this they 
have been encouraged by Pope Leo XIII., the discussion 
recently turning largely on his encyclical upon labor. 
Naturally, this encyclical, as well as other authoritative 
utterances of the church, are variously interpreted, and 
the term Christian socialism is often applied to the more 
radical utterances by Eoman Catholics dealing with the 
labor problem. The two most noteworthy prelates in 
this connection are the late Bishop von Ketteler of 
Mainz, and Cardinal Manning, whose activity, however, 
was practical rather than theoretical. The name of 
Cardinal Gibbons is also frequently mentioned in this 
connection,^ and his Remarkable letter upon the Knights 
of Labor should not be overlooked by one who would 
familiarize himself with the attitude of the Eoman Cath- 
olic Church regarding social questions. Probably, how- 
ever, the work which best deserves attention among all 
the treatments of social questions from the Koman Cath- 
olic standpoint, is still that one on the relation of Chris- 
tianity to the labor question, written by Bishop von 
Ketteler, and first published in 1864.^ The best concise 

1 See Eerichte der Evangeliscli-Sozialen Kongresse. 

2 Published under the title, Evangelisch-soziale Zeitfragen. 

3 Appendix XI., Bibliography. 

4 Arbeiterfrage und das Christhenthum, 4'«Auflage mit Einlei- 
tung von Windthorst 



THE LITERATURE OF SOCIALISM. 107 

and accurate description of Catholic thought and activity 
in the direction of Christian socialism, is found in an 
article written by Dr. Andr. Briill, in the admirable en- 
cyclopsedia of political science, edited by Professor Con- 
rad and others.^ 

Works written by non-socialists about socialists give 
us secondary sources of information which are of impor- 
tance. These works are very numerous, and only a few 
can be mentioned. Emile de Laveleye's '' Socialism of 
To-day/' translated with an addition upon English social- 
ism by Mr. Orpen, is one of the most important works 
which belong to this class. It is the work of a liberal 
economist strongly animated by Christian sympathies ; 
but as it was written some ten years ago, it does not give 
an account of recent movements. Ely's '^French and 
German Socialism " attempts to present impartially the 
main French and German systems up to the year 1883, 
when it appeared ; and in his " Labor Movement in 
America," the author has given a descriptive account of 
socialism in the United States. Graham's " Socialism 
Old and New," is a recent work, catholic in spirit. 
Rae's " Contemporary Socialism " ^ is a carefully pre- 
pared and scholarly work, but one which takes a more 
critical attitude than those already mentioned. A work 
entitled " A Plea for Liberty ; An Argument against 
Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," written by E. S. 
Robertson, W. Donisthorpe, George Howell, and others, 
with an introduction by Herbert Spencer, is a work 
which takes a decidedly more antagonistic spirit with 

* See *' Soziale Reformbestrebungen (Katholisch-Soziale)," in 
Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaftenf published in Jena, by 
Gustav Fislier. 

2 Second edition, Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1891. 



108 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

reference to socialism, and advocates extreme individ- 
ualism, verging at times on anarchy. Mr. Mallock^s 
books, " Social Equality," " Labour and the Public Wel- 
fare/' and others, may be mentioned among works taking 
a position of antagonism to socialism, but which are 
popular rather than scholarly in character. Sir James 
Fitz James Stephens's ^' Liberty, Equality, and Frater- 
nity " is an able work which takes issue with some of 
the premises of liberal economics and socialism, espe- 
cially as found in the writings of John Stuart Mill. 

One of the most important earlier treatments of social- 
ism is given by Dr. E-udolf Meyer in his work, " Der 
Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes." ^ Dr. Meyer 
wrote this book from the standpoint of an adherent of 
conservative German politics who took liberal economic 
views. It is an accurate description of the many phases 
of socialism, and presents liberal extracts from original 
documents. It impresses one as the work of a catholic 
and fair-minded man. Dr. Meyer has, in the present 
year, published a work in which he gives his impres- 
sions based, upon subsequent experience. It is entitled 
" Der Kapitalismus fin de siecle," ^ and it deserves at- 
tention. 

The works of Dr. Schaffle, ^^ The Quintessence of 
Socialism," and ^^ The Impossibility of Social Democracy," 
both translated into English,^ are especially worthy of at- 
tention. The first of the two attempts to give a correct 
and colorless statement of the essential ideas of social- 
ism, while the latter criticises severely the social de- 
mocracy of Germany. It has been found difficult by 
many to reconcile the one work with the other. Prof. 

^ In 2 vols., Berlin, 1874-5. 2 Vienna and Leipsic, 1894. 
8 Sonnenschein's Social Science Series, London. 



THE LITERATURE OF SOCIALISM. 109 

Julius Wolf of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, 
has written a strongly anti-socialistic book which has 
recently attracted considerable attention. The chief aim 
of it is to disprove the law of evolution, which is the 
main feature of the Marxist socialism.^ While this 
book was hailed as epoch-making by the newspaper press, 
specialists have felt called upon to criticise it with 
unusual severity, as in itself inaccurate, on account of a 
failure to comprehend socialism, and as inexact in its 
statistics. 

A critique of Marx's socialism, which deserves special 
attention, is that found in "Die Grundlagen der Karl- 
Marxschen Kritik," by Georg Adler.^ 

It can scarcely be necessary to add that all economic 
treatises discuss socialism at greater or less length and 
more or less fairly. It must be acknowledged, however, 
that the ordinary political economist has never taken 
the trouble to master the socialism which he attempts 
to criticise, and that the criticisms generally found in 
economic treatises do not go beyond truisms and catch- 
words, and fail altogether to reach the heart of the sub- 
ject. There are numerous exceptions, fortunately, and 
among these exceptions special mention should be made 
of Dr. Adolph Wagner, who in his "Grundlegung der 
politischen Oekonomie," * has given an excellent exposi- 
tion of the fundamental principles at issue in the discus- 
sion of socialism. 

^ ** Sozialismus und kapitalistische Gesellscliaftsordnuiig.'* Stutt- 
gart, 1892. 

2 Tubingen, 1878. 8 Third edition, Leipsic, 1892. 



PART II. 

THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 



PART II. 
THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 



CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

We have now examined the nature of socialism, and 
we propose next to look at one side of socialism only, 
and endeavor to ascertain what good things may be said 
in its behalf. A consideration of the weakness of social- 
ism will follow ; but it seems likely to promote 
clearness of thought if we separate the one from the 
other. When it is said that we want to ascertain what 
strength socialism has, it does not signify a presentation 
of socialism such as that which an advocate would give. 
An advocate groups his arguments with reference to the 
persuasion of those whom he hopes to reach, and he lays 
particular emphasis upon that which will convince his 
audience ; moreover, he appeals to feeling rather than to 
intellect, and is inclined to indulge in rhetorical flights. 
The purpose of the scholar who approaches a subject like 
socialism with perfect impartiality is quite different. He 
examines the subject calmly, and seeks to give due weight 
to all those arguments which an honest and intelligent 
man must admit in behalf of socialism. He does not 
endeavor to persuade, but simply to enlighten ; and fre- 
quently those points which would be most effective in an 
advocate's plea, he must reject altogether. 

113 



114 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEWUM. 

The strength of socialism may be considered from two 
standpoints. One may regard socialism in its influence 
upon the existing industrial order, and seek to ascertain 
what beneficial effects it has had, or is likely to have, 
upon this order, although it may not change it in its fun- 
damental features. It is entirely legitimate to take the 
position that socialism in itself is not practicable, and 
yet has strength on account of its criticism of present 
society, and also on account of suggestions which it 
offers for reform. It may be held that socialism is a 
leaven needed at the present moment, although one re- 
jects socialism itself. On the other hand, we may exam- 
ine the strong features of socialism itself, considered as 
a system which proposes to supplant the existing social 
order altogether. Both standpoints must be taken to 
understand the full strength of socialism. 

Undoubtedly one of the strongest features of socialism, 
considered as a plan for an entirely new industrial soci- 
ety, is its all-inclusiveness. Socialism is a structure of 
society which takes in all; it leaves no residuum, no 
" submerged tenth.'' This all-inclusiveness of socialism 
appeals strongly to those who have been discouraged by 
the patchwork and piecemeal character of other social 
reforms. Take " trades unionism,'' for example : it has 
benefited great masses of men, but it always leaves be- 
hind a wretched class of unorganized wage-earners ; and 
even should it attain its impossible ideal of complete or- 
ganization of wage-earners, it would still leave behind the 
most wretched of all ; namely, the dependent and delin- 
quent classes. Take charity organization in all its various 
forms : it endeavors to minister to the dependent classes, 
taking them one by one ; but it leaves unreached a dis- 
heartening number of needy and worthy cases. In fact, 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 115 

those whom one would most like to help are precisely 
those most generally passed over by charity organiza- 
tion. The same holds true with respect to all private 
efforts to aid individual cases. Private effort to reach 
the needy one by one, so resembles pouring water into a 
sieve, that many turn from it in despair. Socialism fol- 
lows the method of Aristotle, and proceeds from the 
whole to the part. Its very structure is such that none 
are left out, but ample room is found for the cripple as 
well as for the athlete, for the weak and feeble as well as 
for the strong and powerful. 



116 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE STRENGTH OF SOCIAIiISM AS A SCHEME OF 
PRODUCTION. 

While socialism originates in a desire to bring about 
justice in distribution, it lays great weight on the possi- 
bilities of increased production of wealth, which it prom- 
ises. Socialism reproaches present society, not only with 
its very unequal distribution of wealth actually produced, 
but with its small production of wealth. Its adherents 
claim that but a fractional part of the wealth which could 
be created is actually produced for the satisfaction of 
human needs. This is well brought out in a passage in 
Mr. Bellamy's ^^ Looking Backward,'' in which Dr. Leete 
says to Mr. West : — 

"I suppose that no reflection would have cut the men of your 
wealth-worshipping century more keenly than the suggestion that 
they did not know how to make money. . . . Selfishness was 
their only science, and, in industrial production, selfishness is 
suicide.'* 

The first strong point which socialism makes with 
respect to wealth-creation, is that which provides for the 
suppression of the wastes of competition. There can be 
no doubt that this is a valid argument. As socialism 
proposes the abolition of the present competitive society, 
it must necessarily do away with the wastes of competi- 
tion in the abolition of competition. Whether or not it 
brings evils, as great or greater, in the place of these 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 117 

wastes, is an entirely different question, which does not 
concern us at present. 

None can say how great the wastes of competition are, 
but a few illustrations are sufficient to show that they 
are enormous. Railways in the United States afford the 
best illustration. The moment we begin reflecting upon 
wastes in the railway business, we are able to give con- 
crete instances running up into the hundreds of millions 
of dollars. The railway lines paralleling the Kew York 
Central & Hudson Eiver Railway, and the Lake Shore & 
Michigan Southern, from New York City to Chicago, 
afford one of the best-known examples of waste in rail- 
way construction. These lines were built to compete 
with the older lines mentioned ; but, as is always the case 
in such instances, the competing lines consolidated. The 
purpose for which they were built was not accomplished, 
and the expenditure involved in their construction was a 
national loss. It has been estimated that these lines cost 
two hundred millions of dollars, which would be a sum 
sufficient to construct homes for one million people, if we 
allow a thousand dollars to a dwelling for a family of 
five; and this is probably more than the average cost 
of the houses of the people of the United States, taking 
city and country together. We see, then, that one single 
item in our count is a matter of national concern ; but 
when we have mentioned the waste in construction, we 
have only made a beginning in the total loss involved in 
the construction of needless railway lines. The mainte- 
nance of the useless lines, and their continued operation, 
involve perpetual loss. Every station on the parallel 
line involves waste. Every station-agent is a source of 
expense, and every needless train run adds to the waste. 
It is not denied that the parallel railway lines offer some 



118 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFORM. 

slight accommodation, and therefore service, to the pub- 
lic. The new parallel line will, for example, generally 
run through a different part of the city, and it is not 
improbable that the time-table of the new parallel line 
will be different from that of the older company, so that 
in this way a variety of trains is offered. At the same 
time, the expense is mostly waste, because a relatively 
small additional expenditure on the part of the old 
company would offer still better accommodations. We 
have, also, not only to consider the convenience of having 
stations in the different parts of the city, but the great 
inconvenience which results from having different sta- 
tions in the city, the greater risk to travellers on the 
highway, and the disfigurement of the city, which is 
always involved in a railway line. Now, what has taken 
place in the case of the West Shore and the Nickel Plate, 
between New York and Chicago, has occurred all over 
the United States ; and the total loss must amount to 
more than a thousand millions of dollars, if we consider 
only the first cost. If we consider the subsequent ex- 
penditure involved, it becomes truly enormous, — a loss 
like that brought upon a nation by a great war. It is 
said by a railway manager, that even now it would 
involve an annual saving of two hundred millions of 
dollars if the railways of the United States were man- 
aged as a unit. If we divide the sum by two, in order 
that our estimate may be a conservative one, and capital- 
ize it at four per cent, we have a capital loss of two 
thousand five hundred millions of dollars. It is useless 
to attempt any precise estimate, but it may not be an 
extravagant estimate if we claim that the loss due to 
competition in the railway business in the United States, 
from the beginning of our railway history up to the 



THE STRENGTU OF SOCIALISM, 119 

present, has been sufficient to furnish all the people of 
the United States with comfortable dwellings, provided 
that all the houses now in the United States should be 
destroyed. Socialism, then, makes a very strong point 
when it shows that a waste of this kind would be abol- 
ished with the abolition of the competitive system. 

The ex23erience of England and the United States, the 
only two great countries which have tried the competi- 
tive system in the telegraph business, is most instructive. 
It is claimed that the capitalization of the telegraphs of 
the United States, large as it is, does not exceed the 
amount of capital which has been actually invested, 
and this estimate would not seem to be an exaggeration, 
when we bear in mind the fact that, a little over a gen- 
eration ago, it took a page of an almanac simply to 
enumerate the companies which existed in this country. 
The Western Union, which is the principal company, 
and which has been the concern to swallow the others, 
is capitalized at $100,000,000. If we leave out of con- 
sideration any other company or companies existing at 
present, and deduct from the $100,000,000 the $20,000,- 
000 which it is estimated would be sufficient to duplicate 
the plant, we should have a loss of $80,000,000. This, 
however, is but a fractional part of the total loss, be- 
cause we must take into account the needless expense 
involved in operating the plants which have been ulti- 
mately absorbed. No one can tell what the total loss is, 
but certainly $100,000,000 is an underestimate. Eng- 
land tried the competitive system in the telegraph 
business until about the year 1870, when she became 
convinced that competition in this line of business, at 
any rate, was a mistake, and purcTiased the telegra])h, 
making it a ])art of the postal system. Now, the capital 



120 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

invested in the telegraph had grown to such enormous 
proportions, owing to the number of companies which 
had been engaged in business, and which had all been 
absorbed at last by one company, that it cost England 
nearly as much to make the telegraph a part of the post- 
office as it did all the other countries of Europe put 
together, because in these the telegraph had been from 
the beginning a part of the post-office, and the wastes of 
competition had been avoided. 

Gas works offer, in some respects, a better illustration 
of the wastes of competition even than railways. The 
loss in the country's industry is not so great, but the 
business itself is simpler, and the outcome of attempted 
competition can be the more readily seen. A develop-- 
ment which requires decades in railway business, is ac- 
complished in years in the gas business. Eival gas 
works in a city always consolidate, and monopoly is the 
inevitable outcome of competition, and loss to the city at- 
tempting competition will be equal to the capital wasted 
in all the unsuccessful attempts which have been made 
to establish competition in gas supply. While there 
may be some incidental gains, these will be more than 
off-set by losses which can be enumerated in dollars and 
cents. A great deal of disease and death may be traced 
to a needless tearing up of the streets in cities by rival 
companies, and disease and death are serious waste. 

If we take a single city like Baltimore, and try to 
ascertain the loss due to the existence of competitive 
gas companies, we can form in our minds some kind of 
an idea how enormous the waste during a generation 
must have been, when we remember that what has hap- 
pened in Baltimore has happened in nearly all great 
American cities. There have existed in Baltimore at 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM, 121 

one time and another, five or six different gas compa- 
nies ; each one has promised the people of Baltimore the 
alleged benefits of competition, and then, after a gas 
war, has consolidated with the old company. There is 
now in Baltimore one company, called "The Consoli- 
dated Gas Company,'' with a capital of $18,000,000, 
including bonds. Probably it is safe to estimate tlie 
difference between the capitalization of this company 
and what it would cost to duplicate this plant, as waste 
due to the competitive system. It is said that the plant 
could be duplicated for less than $5,000,000 ; but if we 
deduct $5,000,000 and then $3,000,000 more, so as to 
make our estimate an extremely conservative one, we 
still have a waste in this one city of $10,000,000. 

The milk business is often adduced by socialists as an 
example of the waste due to competition. In each city, 
every company or individual engaged in the milk busi- 
ness supplies people in every part of the city, and the 
streets of each city are traversed by a large number of 
milk wagons. The distribution of milk in the city may 
be contrasted with the distribution of mail. The deliv- 
ery of the mail is so organized that each mail carrier has 
a given district assigned to him, and he carries the mail 
to all persons in his own district. The delivery of milk 
might be compared to a delivery of letters and news- 
papers without any system. Let us suppose, in a city 
like Philadelphia, all the mail, on arrival, was simply 
put in a heap, and each mail carrier should take up an 
armful for distribution ; it is manifest that it would take 
very many times the force which it now requires to dis- 
tribute the mail, because each mail carrier would have 
to run all over the city, and a dozen mail carriers would 
traverse each street. 



122 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

Advertising exists for two purposes : one is to convey 
information, and the other is to acquire a business, to 
hold one's business, or to take business away from others. 
Advertising is like war, and is, indeed, one of the aspects 
of industrial conflict. The increasing expenses due to 
advertising may be compared to the increasing expenses 
due to standing armies in Europe. But a small frac- 
tional part of what is paid out for advertising is expendi- 
ture for the sake of conveying useful information. The 
greater part of it is necessitated by the advertising of 
one's rivals. The grocer A spends a thousand dollars a 
year in advertising of one sort and another, and his rival, 
grocer B, spends the same to keep his business. Then 
grocer A the next year, being what is called an enter- 
prising man, spends fifteen hundred dollars, and grocer 
B spends two thousand dollars. Let the reader reflect 
upon the enormous expenditures of rival soap manufac- 
turers, of which no part worthy of mention is employed 
to convey useful information. To conquer new territory, 
or to hold its own against the attacks of rivals, each one 
of several great companies spends enormous amounts, 
which can scarcely fail to run up into the hundreds of 
thousands of dollars. We can see an increase in the 
expenditures for advertising of one sort and another, and 
the absorption of a considerable talent and ingenuity in 
the discovery of new and improved ways of advertising, 
which resemble the growing expense of the armies of 
France and Germany, and the absorption of talent and 
enterprise to discover new ways of killing men. Of 
course it will not be claimed that the economic loss of 
advertising is anything like the economic loss due to 
standing armies, and yet it is by no means insignificant. 
A student ^ who has investigated the subject perhaps as 
1 Mr. P. M. Magnusson. 



THE STRENGril OF SOCIALISM, 123 

carefully as any one, and the result of whose labors it 
is to be hoped will, at a not distant day, be given to the 
world, estimated the expenses of advertising in this 
country at hve hundred millions of dollars a year, of 
which five millions w^ould be ample to convey all the 
useful information given by this advertising. Of course 
all this expenditure is not total loss ; a part of it is 
saved by those to whom it is paid. AVhat we have to 
consider from a social standpoint, is capital and labor 
used up, which leave behind no real utility. If A trans- 
fers to B a thousand dollars, society, as a w^hole, is 
neither richer nor poorer. That does not represent 
social waste. But if A spends a whole day in work 
which accomplishes nothing, or B consumes to no purpose 
type and paper, we have a real social loss. Economic 
energy, which might have been so employed as to benefit 
human beings, has been simply wasted. Now, a part of 
wdiat is expended for advertising represents simply a 
transfer of wealth from one section of the community 
to another ; and some may be inclined to hold that the 
estimate itself of expenditure is a large one. Should we, 
however, in order to ascertain the social loss, feel obliged 
to divide the estimate of five hundred millions by five, 
we would still have a loss of one hundred millions of 
dollars, which, from the standpoint of society, is by no 
means insignificant. 

The reader can continue for himself illustrations of 
this kind. Travelling salesmen will readily occur as an 
illustration of large expenditure, wliich is, to no incon- 
siderable extent, waste due to competition. Of course 
this waste is allied to the waste of advertising. 

Socialists call the present production planless, in con- 
trasting production as a whole witli the organized system 



124 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

of a single great factory. They propose to substitute 
for present planlessness of production at large, regular, 
orderly, systematic production. This is a very strong 
point in the program of socialism, and the gains result- 
ing therefrom would be many. Not the least important 
of these would be the limitation of the chance element in 
production. The chance element is characteristic, either 
of production on a small scale, or production imperfectly 
organized. When we have to do with large masses of 
social phenomena, or with productive forces working on 
a vast scale, the chance element is reduced to such low 
terms that it may be almost said to disappear. No 
better illustration of this general rule can be offered than 
human mortality. What is more uncertain than death, 
when we have regard to the death of a single individual ? 
Its uncertainty has been proverbial from time immemo- 
rial. No one can tell whether you or I will be alive next 
year, next month, or even to-morrow, yet uncertainty in 
regard to life and death disappears when we deal with 
large numbers of human beings. We can indeed tell 
how many among ten millions of people will be alive a 
year from to-day, a month from to-day, or even to- 
morrow, so great is the regularity with which death 
occurs among large masses of human beings. This regu- 
larity is sufficient to enable us to build upon it one of 
the largest businesses of modern times ; namely, life 
insurance, which, when intelligently conducted, by no 
means involves more than an average risk ; on the con- 
trary, rather less than average business risk. Thus it 
is with production. When we consider a single farmer 
growing wheat in Minnesota, or a planter raising corn 
in Virginia, the chance element is prominent. Drought 
may destroy the wheat crop in Minnesota, and flood 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM, 125 

the corn crop in Virginia. Yet, when we take the 
country as a whole, the fluctuations due to changes in 
seasons and other causes are reduced to low terms. If 
the wheat crop is deficient in one part of the country, it 
is likely to be abundant elsewhere, and a general average 
maintained. The same is true with respect to other 
crops. The larger the scale on which production is or- 
ganized, the less the risk, because irregularities in one 
direction or the other are more likely to balance one 
another. The reader's imagination will enable him to 
supply illustrations without limit. 

When the chance element visits one adversely time 
after time, human energy suffers impairment, and at 
times becomes almost paralyzed. Every one has seen 
numerous illustrations of the frequent effect of repeated 
but undeserved misfortune. 

The present planlessness of production may be viewed 
from still another standpoint. At the present time 
the wheat grower produces for an uncertain, capricious 
market, and his destiny is only to an inconsiderable 
extent within his own control. Farmer A observes that 
the price of wheat has been high for two or three years, 
and he thinks that wheat is a good crop to raise. He 
begins to cultivate wheat on a large scale, but he does 
not know what rival producers are doing or are going to 
do. Farmer B and Farmer C and thousands of others 
have made the same observation, and they all begin 
growing wheat. The result is a large over-production of 
wheat, and loss to the producers. Farmer A then decides 
that he will give up wheat and try sheep-raising, because 
mutton and wool have for some time been high ; but 
thousands of other farmers have at the same time come 
to this conclusion, and sheep-raising is carried too far. 



126 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

Mutton and wool fall in price, and again there is loss to 
individuals, and a loss to society as a whole, because 
economic energy has not been most advantageously ex- 
pended. The writer has concrete instances in mind. 
One of them is grape culture ; the farnuers along the 
shore of Lake Erie, in western New York, have observed 
that it is profitable to grow table grapes ; and between 
Dunkirk in New York and Erie in Pennsylvania, the 
country is beginning to assume the appearance of a 
continuous vineyard. Who can tell what the results 
will be ? These growers are able to make only an 
uncertain estimate of demand, and still more unable are 
they to estimate the probable supply of grapes through- 
out the country. Here we have a very large expen- 
diture, continuing through years with uncertain results. 
Many similar illustrations might be given, if we should 
turn our attention to manufacturing industries and pro- 
fessional occupations, which afford instances enough of 
misapplied force, due to a failure to estimate correctly 
supply and demand. 

We may say, indeed, that the producers are playing at 
hide and seek with supply and demand, and no one can 
tell what the outcome of the game will be. The socialist 
makes a strong point when he bids us contrast with this 
planlessness of production, resulting in large loss and 
immense human suffering, the regular, orderly, system- 
atic production which he advocates. He proposes to 
ascertain demand, and organize the forces of production 
as a unit to meet this demand, but to produce no more 
than is needed. It can be told in advance, with an 
approximation to accuracy, how many bushels of wheat 
will be needed in the United States the coming year; 
and with a like approximation to accuracy, it may be 
told how many acres of wheat will supply this need. 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM, 127 

Wastes by mistaken undertakings are a necessary- 
feature of the present competitive order of society ; but 
they might be expected to be largely reduced under 
socialism. This is closely connected with what has 
preceded, and becomes sufficiently obvious upon reflec- 
tion. What is more uncertain than the result of a new 
telegraph company or railway company in the United 
States ? The uncertainty is great on account of the 
presence of competition. If we turn our attention, how- 
ever, to a country like Germany, where there is no com- 
petition in telegraphing or in the railway industry, 
because both are government enterprises, we shall find 
that it is easy to tell in advance very nearly what will 
be the result of an extension of the telegraph or the rail- 
ways. It is possible to take into account very nearly all 
the elements involved in the calculation, both businesses 
becoming relatively simple the moment the competi- 
tive element is removed, although, with this element 
present, they are extremely complicated. The same 
holds, although in less degree, with respect to manufac- 
tures and mercantile undertakings. It has been claimed 
that nine-tenths of the men who go into business in the 
United States fail, and each failure represents a loss of 
capital and of human energy. Even if, to be on the con- 
servative side in our estimate, we reduce the estimated 
number of failures by one half, we still have a loss 
which, in the aggregate, is enormous. 

Another claim of socialism is one which, at a time like 
tlie present, is peculiarly effective. It is maintained that 
the wastes from crises and industrial depressions will 
disappear ; and this claim is well founded, because crises 
and industrial depressions are part and parcel of the 
competitive system of industry, and would cease to 



128 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

afflict society with the abolition of the competitive sys- 
tem. Perhaps we here touch upon that loss which is 
chief among all those due to a competitive industrial 
order, and it may be that a description of the evils inci- 
dent to crises and industrial depressions is as severe an 
indictment of present society as can be brought against 
it. The losses in a single year of industrial crises, and 
consequent industrial stagnation, amount to hundreds of 
millions of dollars, and involve untold misery to millions 
of human beings. Capital is idle ; labor is unemployed ; 
the production of wealth ceases ; want and even starva- 
tion come to thousands ; marriages decrease ; separations, 
divorces, and prostitution increase in alarming propor- 
tions ; and all this happens because the machinery of 
the industrial system has been thrown out of gear by the 
operation of some force or another, which, so far as we 
can judge from experience, is an essential part of the 
order of competition. 

It follows naturally enough from what has preceded, 
that the waste due to idle labor and idle capital might 
be expected to cease ; production would be carried on for 
the satisfaction of wants, and so long as wants remained 
there would be no reason why all labor and all capital 
should not be employed. 

It may fairly be claimed that socialism would promote 
the full utilization of existing inventions and industrial 
discoveries. It may not be so clear that socialism would 
surpass present society in new inventions and industrial 
discoveries, but there could not well be any opposition 
to the utilization of those already in existence. On 
account of the unification and harmony of interests 
established in society, there would necessarily be a gen- 
eral desire to produce material wealth socially required 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM, 129 

with, the smallest expenditure of economic energy. At 
the present time, on the other hand, there are important 
classes in the community who resist the utilization of 
improved machines and methods. The explanation is, 
that these classes either actually would suffer, or they 
think they would suffer, from that which would be a 
gain to society as a whole. We have, on the one hand, 
the wage-earners, who often object to new and better 
machinery and improved processes, because they think 
the result to them would be either lower wages or entire 
loss of work ; on the other, the opposition of capital tc 
like improvements, involving serious change and outlay, 
whenever capital has anything like a monopoly. 

All are familiar with the destruction of machinery by 
factory operatives in England early in this century ; 
and while some may entertain exaggerated views of the 
extent to which wage-earners oppose improvement, there 
can be no doubt but tliis opposition is a real force, and 
that it has to a greater or less degree retarded indus- 
trial progress. Undoubtedly, wage-earners have gener- 
ally been mistaken in the amount of injury which they 
have anticipated from new inventions and methods ; but 
it is unquestionable that many of them liave suffered 
temporarily, and some of them permanently. One effect 
of improvement is to render previous skill of no conse- 
quence, and to relegate once skilled artisans to the ranks 
of unskilled labor. Quite likely society may gain, but 
the individual suffers ; and who can help feeling that 
it is unjust to concentrate the sacrifice of social change 
upon one, or even upon a few ? It has, indeed, been 
proposed by those not socialists, that an indemnity should 
be granted to individuals who suffer on account of indus- 
trial improvements, in order that the burden involved in 



130 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

a transition from an inferior to a superior industrial pro- 
cess should be divided among society as a whole, and 
not concentrated upon a few. Manifestly, the difficulties 
involved in carrying out this idea under our present 
social system are immense, although the idea itself is a 
good one. The entire question disappears as a problem 
under socialism. Let us take the case of a communistic 
settlement like those which exist in different parts of the 
United States. Can any ground exist in such a commu-. 
nity for opposition to improvement in tools or industrial 
methods ? Let us suppose that some member of the 
community has gained great skill in performing certain 
operations by hand, — type-setting, for example, — and 
that an invention is made in the community by the use 
of which it is possible for a child easily to perform this 
operation. Can the one who has acquired the skill 
object? Scarcely: although his skill is no longer of 
any use to him, he shares with the rest of the com- 
munity in the advantages gained by the improvement; 
whereas, if by a system of socialism his interests were 
not identical with theirs, they would gain the advan- 
tage, and he might suffer loss through a reduction in 
wages. What would be true in a small communistic 
settlement, would be true in society at large, under 
socialism. 

It has just been stated that it is not so clear that 
socialism would lead to new inventions and discoveries, 
as it is that it would promote the utilization of those 
already in existence. One exception must be made. 
It can hardly be questioned that under socialism the 
inventive powers of men would be stimulated to provide 
machinery to do disagreeable work, and to render work 
now disagreeable as agreeable as possible. The inven- 



rilE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 131 

live power of man now aims to increase the earnings of 
capital, and not chiefly to render the task of the toiler 
as light and pleasant * as possible. Ocean steamships 
serve as illustration, and, in so far as they go, as proof. 
The improvements which have been made within a gen- 
eration to render an ocean voyage agreeable to first-class 
travellers are remarkable. The ingenuity which lias 
been expended in this direction is admirable, and the 
amount of capital invested in these improvements is very 
large. What has been done, in the meantime, to render 
an ocean voyage agreeable to the stokers and ordinary 
sailors ? Very little. The reason is not that improve- 
ment is impossible, but that it has not paid. It is true, 
however, that in proportion as you make men valuable, 
machinery does disagreeable work. 

Now, it is the essence of socialism to insist upon the 
value of man ; and it is evident that this new order 
could not fail to result in a new class of inventions and 
discoveries. Even now we can say that the amount of 
economic energy expended in lightening menial toil is 
precisely in proportion to the value which attaches to 
the ordinary man or woman. 

An advertisement (of what is technically called the 
^^ before and after " kind) which attracted the author's 
attention some time since, is significant. It was simply 
an advertisement of a mop ; but as a naturalist can con- 
struct from a single bone a likeness of an extinct ani- 
mal, so a sociologist, sufficiently skilful, could tell us 
a good deal about the kind of society in which this 
advertisement appeared. The advertisement gave two 
pictures ; one of an ordinary mop, out of which the 
water w^as being wrung by a bedrabblod, sorry-looking 
maid, and the other of a smiling, comely housewife, who 



132 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFOUM, 

was wringing the dirty water out of the mop by simply 
turning the handle. This method of extracting the dirty 
water, without soiling one's hands, was the essentia] 
feature of the patented mop. Now, of course, the author 
knows nothing about the merits of this mop, but he 
claims that the advertisement itself, of the alleged im- 
provement, signifies a great deal. It is significant that 
the advertisement appeared in the United States, where 
women's wages are high, and many women of respecta- 
bility do their own house work, and not in Germany, 
where labor is cheap and servants abundant. It is 
significant that improvements of this kind should be 
more abundant in the North than in the South. Equally 
significant is the undoubted fact that the tools used 
by the slaves in the South were of an inferior kind. 
The Northern farmer, who hoed his own Indian corn, 
used a beautifully constructed hoe, weighing a few 
ounces, and despised the heavy and clumsy tool used 
by the Southern slave in the field. Equally significant 
is the fact that, when it was made illegal to send chim- 
ney sweeps down chimneys in England, the chimneys 
were still swept, but by improved tools, and not by boys 
in the chimneys themselves.^ 

The author spent some time among the Shakers at 
Mount Lebanon, New York, and was much pleased to 
see the improvements which had been introduced in the 
kitchen, rendering kitchen work so agreeable that the 
sisters preferred it to any other occupation. One thing 
which he remembers is that the soiled clothes were 
washed by the aid of water-power. Now, what did all 
these unusual improvements in the kitchen signify, ex- 

1 This last illustration is given by Mrs. Annie Besant in the Fabian 



i 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM, 133 

cept that the community of interests resulted in the 
devotion of a larger proportion than usual of the in- 
ventive talent and energy of this social group to occu- 
pations ordinarily termed menial ? 

It may further be urged in behalf of socialism, that 
under socialism all forces will work together for a large 
product, whereas, at the present time, powerful forces 
are not infrequently striving for a diminished produc- 
tion of wealth. The reason for the condition of things 
which exists at the present, becoines obvious when we 
reflect upon the fact that production is carried on for 
exchange, and tliat what the producers want is not 
abundance of commodities, but large values. The two 
are by no means identical, for value depends upon limita- 
tion of supply. If the supply of commodities could be 
sufficient to satisfy all wants, then commodities would 
have no value at all, but would become free like air 
or w^ater. 

Wherever it is practicable, producers, then, must of 
necessity, in a society like ours, endeavor to check pro- 
duction before diminished value begins to do more than 
off-set increased quantity. This, also, explains the fact 
that owners of commodities, for example, fruits, have 
been known to destroy a share of them in order to keep 
up value. 

Cotton, in the United States, serves as an excellent 
illustration of the divergence between individual or class 
interests and general social interests. Naturally, society 
as a whole wants a large and abundant supply of cotton, 
which furnishes the raw material of so many useful pro- 
ducts, but an important section of the country has been 
distressed by the abundant yield of cotton. Southern 
planters have for some time been trying to devise means 



134 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFOBM. 

to diminish tlie production of cotton. There lie before 
the author as he writes, clippings and quotations from 
several newspapers. One of these describes a conven- 
tion of cotton men, and the heading is "Trying to 
Wrestle with the Problem of Over-production.'' The 
article is a telegraphic despatch dated Memphis, Jan. 8, 
1892, and it begins as follows : — 

" That the farmers of the South are in earnest in their en- 
deavor to solve the serious problem of over-production of cotton, 
is evinced by the enthusiastic meeting of delegates to the conven- 
tion of the Mississippi Valley Cotton Growers' Association, which 
was called to order in this city this morning." 

Another clipping is headed " Cotton Planters : South- 
ern Men advocate a Eeduction of the Acreage." A third 
clipping describes a convention held about a year later 
at Augusta, Ga. At this convention a '^ cotton area tax " 
was suggested. The President of the Boston Cham- 
ber of Commerce, in a speech delivered before a notable 
religious gathering in Washington, referred in these 
words to the large production of cotton in the South : ^ — 

" In 1890 we harvested a cotton crop of over eight million six 
hundred thousand bales — several hundred thousand bales more 
than the world could consume. Had the crop of the present year 
been equally large, it would have been an appalling calamity to 
the section of our country that devotes so large a portion of its 
labor and capital to the raising of cotton." 

How strange a thing is this bounty of nature ! We 
wish nature to be generous, but not too generous. If 
nature comes to us with smiling face and outstretched 

^ The Hon. Alden ^^eare, President of the Boston Chamber of 
Commerce, Address on Labor and Capital, before the Ecumenical 
Conference of the Methodist Cliiircli in Washington, D.C., as re- 
ported in the Baltimore American, Oct. 17, 1891. 



< 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 135 

arms, and pours into our laps her gifts without stint, she 
impoverishes us, and we hardly know whether to dread 
the more an excess of niggardliness or an excess of gen- 
erosity on her part. So full of contradictions is our pres- 
ent economic order, that men must go without coats 
because too much clothing has been produced, and chil- 
dren must go hungry because the production of grain 
has been over-abundant. As the socialists have said, 
with some measure of truth, " In civilization poverty is 
born of plenty." 

As socialism proposes that production should be car- 
ried on to satisfy wants directly, the present machinery 
for exchange of commodities would almost disappear, and 
trade and commerce, in their existing form, would be 
practically abolished. The plan of socialism is that 
products should be gathered into large central stores, 
and then distributed among the various members of the 
community according to their claims upon the income of 
society; in other words, in accordance with their own 
individual income. It is estimated by Mr. Bellamy that 
one-eightieth of the population would be sufficient to 
bring the goods from the producer to the consumer, 
whereas, he says, that one-eighth of the population is 
now required for this service. This would then mean a 
saving of nine-tenths. Whether the saving would be so 
great as this or not, it is undoubted tliat socialism, if 
it could be made to work, would require a far smaller 
proportion of the population to bring goods from the 
producer to the consumer than present society. 

If we view production of wealth from the standpoint 
of an employer, we find that socialism is not without its 
strong features. Surely the employing class cannot find 
its present relation to the em})loyed altogether agreeable. 



136 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

It is not pleasant to be engaged in perpetual struggle, 
and to be viewed with suspicion, and even positive hostil- 
ity. Many an employer, weary of turmoil, would assur- 
edly welcome a system which promises social peace, 
although it might effect a reduction in his own income, 
could he feel convinced that this new system was able to 
keep its promises in this respect. Working men may 
say what they please, but the lot of the employer is too 
frequently anything but an agreeable one, and that he 
should at times become embittered, when he sees himself 
perpetually misunderstood, misinterpreted, and antago- 
nized, is not strange. A far stronger plea for socialism, 
from the standpoint of the employer engaged in produc- 
tion, might be made than one would be inclined to be- 
lieve at first blush.^ 

The promises which socialism holds out to the em- 

* " In the present stage of human progress, when ideas of equality 
are daily spreading more widely among the poorer classes, and can 
no longer be checked by anything short of the entire suppression of 
printed discussion, and even of freedom of speech, it is not to be 
expected that the division of the human race into two hereditary 
classes, employers and employed, can be permanently maintained. 
The relation is nearly as unsatisfactory to the payer of wages as to 
the receiver. If the rich regard the poor as, by a kind of natural law, 
their servants and dependents, the rich in their turn are regarded as 
a mere prey and pasture for the poor; the subject of demands and ex- 
pectations wholly indefinite, increasing in extent with every conces- 
sion made to them. The total absence of regard for justice or fairness 
in the relations between the two is as marked on the side of the em- 
ployed as on that of the employers. We look in vain among the 
working classes in general for the just pride which will choose to give 
good work for good wages : for the most part, their sole endeavor is to 
receive as much, and return as little in the shape of service, as pos- 
sible. It will sooner or later become insupportable to the employing 
classes to live in close and hourly contact with persons whose inter- 
ests and feelings are in hostility to them.'* (John Stuart Mill's 
** Principles of Political Economy," Book IV. chap. vii. § 4.) 



THE STRENGTU OF SOCIALISM. 137 

ployed are, indeed, alluring. It proposes that they 
should constitute a fraternity, govern themselves in in- 
dustry, and work together for the common good. " No 
masters, no servants," must have a welcome sound to 
many, and especially to those who now occupy the sub- 
ordinate positions. 



138 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME FOR THE 
DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION OF AArEALTH. 

Aristotle defended slavery as an institution neces- 
sary to social progress, maintaining that, unless there 
were a class of inferiors who were engaged in the pro- 
duction of material wealth, for the satisfaction of the 
needs of a superior class, there could be no art, no litera- 
ture, no statesmanship; in fact, none of those features 
of a high civilization upon which, ultimately, the general 
welfare must depend. It is generally admitted that in 
his day there was a relative truth, at least, in his plea for 
slavery. One passage in his " Politics " has a prophetic 
ring. He remarked that if the time should ever come 
when the plectra of themselves should strike the lyre, 
and the shuttle should move of itself, then all men might 
be free ; but since his day invention has made many in- 
dustrial operations well-nigh automatic, and the power of 
man in production has been increased many-fold. The 
question suggests itself, cannot the office of slavery, as a 
foundation of a high and worthy civilization for a few, 
be performed by modern machinery for all ? The larger 
the production of wealth, the stronger the argument for 
socialism in distribution. If enough could actually be 
produced to satisfy all the rational wants of all human 
beings, many serious objections against socialism as a 
scheme of distribution would disappear. 

It is well known that in certain branches of industry, 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 139 

the power of man in production has been increased ten, 
twenty, fifty, one hundred, and sometimes even a thou- 
sand-fold. Calico printing, for example, illustrates an 
increase of capacity which is a hundred-fold; and in the 
making of books, it would be difficult to say how many 
thousand-fold has been the increase in human power, if 
we compare present methods with the days of the copy- 
ists, when everything had to be written by hand. When 
we come to estimates of the total gain in man's pro- 
ductive power, the uncertainty is great and estimates 
vary widely. A report of the Department of Labor of 
the United States for 1886, states that the physical 
power of engines employed in the mechanical industries 
is over five times that of the men so employed, and that 
it would require twenty-one millions of men to turn out 
the product which, as a matter of fact, four millions 
turn out. Robert Owen claimed that in New Lanark, 
Scotland, early in this century, the working portion of 
the population of twenty-five hundred produced as much 
wealth as, one-half a century before, a population of six 
hundred thousand could have produced. Another author 
estimates that the machinery of the civilized world per- 
forms a service in production as great as could have been 
rendered in earlier times by sixty slaves for each family 
of five. It is probable that both of these latter estimates 
are far too large, but there can be no question that the 
socialists make a strong point when they bring forward 
the increased production of wealth as an argument for 
the social control of its distribution. 

We cannot fail to commend the aim of socialism to 
substitute an orderly and rational distribution of the 
social dividend, for tliat based on a struggle of private 
interests. This distribution, based upon the struggle of 



140 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

private interests, can satisfy no benevolent person who 
has intelligence enough to see what it means. 

The idea of distribution is the fullest satisfaction of 
human wants ; but at the present time very pressing ones 
go unsatisfied, while a few persons have such a superfluity 
that, to their own harm, they can satisfy every whim and 
caprice. You may find here a young girl who has rare 
artistic gifts, which, on her own account, as well as on 
account of society, it is desirable she should be able to 
develop to the utmost, but by reason of poverty her 
powers languish, and she is obliged to turn to distasteful 
work for which she has no capacity; while on another 
street of the same city you can find a gilded youth, who, 
in a single night's debauch, will spend enough to his own 
undoing to give our talented poor girl the best opportuni- 
ties which money can offer. Instances of this kind fall 
under our observation every day, and if any way can be 
discovered to remedy this wrong, it is certainly desirable 
that it should be known. The effort to mend the evil is 
indeed commendable. 

It is at least conceivable that a distribution of the 
social income by self-conscious social forces, would be 
productive of better results, for the nature of distribu- 
tion would then depend upon the wisdom and integrity 
with which society performed its functions in this re- 
spect. Socialism, in its idea, is unquestionably compati- 
ble with a distribution of the national dividend, which 
would be more productive of well-being than is the distri- 
bution which we now witness. Socialism seeks a dis- 
tribution which avoids the extremes of pauperism and 
plutocracy. This ideal is that of the Bible, as expressed 
in Agur's prayer,^ '' Give me neither poverty nor riches ; 
1 Prov. XXX. 8, 9. 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 141 

feed me with food convenient for me : lest I be full, 
and deny thee, and say. Who is the Lord ? or lest I be 
poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.'' 
Socialists have directed special attention to distribution 
as considered from the standpoint of the wage-earner, 
but the wish for him is that he should cease to be a 
wage-earner, and become a partner in production. This 
is implied in the socialization of the instruments of pro- 
duction ; but this common ownership of the instruments 
of production implies the distribution among the workers 
of that surplus above wages which is now allotted to 
rent, interest, and profits, for socialism proposes to lay 
hold of these shares in distribution and divide them 
among the producers. 

Socialistic distribution has also strength when it is 
viewed from the standpoint of other classes than the 
wage-earners. The employer, even if he may receive a 
smaller share, is free from the harrowing cares and anx- 
ieties which now beset him. The fear that he may lose 
his entire share in the wealth distributed, a fear often 
realized as large producers annihilate small producers, 
ceases to torment him, for socialism, as we have already 
seen, provides an income for all members of society. It 
is not proposed that the full product of industry, without 
abatement of any sort, should go toj the toiler, because it 
is desired that a share should be set aside for those who 
are incapable of themselves engaging in toil, as well 
as a share for replacement of capital and addition to 
capital. 

When distribution is viewed from the standpoint of 
those engaged in the learned professions, socialism is 
not without its attractive features. Those professions 
are now over-crowded, largely because many, better 



142 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

adapted to mechanical pursuits, endeavor to push up 
into the learned professions to escape unpleasant condi- 
tions attending those occupations for which they are 
naturally adapted. This might be expected to cease, if 
agriculture and mechanical pursuits could be rendered 
more agreeable ; and the anxiety of professional men for 
themselves, and often their still greater anxiety for their 
children, would no longer perplex them by day and dis- 
turb their rest at night. 

The strength of socialism as a scheme for the con- 
sumption of wealth, is closely connected with what has 
just been said. The ideal of socialism is private frugal- 
ity and public luxury, which is almost the exact opposite 
of current ideals, for these seem to favor boundless lux- 
ury on the part of private individuals, with parsimony 
in public consumption. Even those who come quite up 
to ordinary ethical standards, do not seem to think that 
any justification is required for a most lavish expendi- 
ture on their own wants, although it include an evening's 
entertainment which costs ten thousand dollars, or a 
private mansion which has involved an outlay of half 
a million. Expenditures on entertainments and private 
dwellings which cost many times the sum mentioned, 
do not offend the public conscience of our day. On 
the other hand, when it comes to school buildings or 
structures for state universities, library buildings, or 
art galleries, which minister to the needs of the people 
as a whole, a legislator who would cut down appropria- 
tions to the minimum amount and deprive public build- 
ings of all beauty, is praised and petted as a " watch-dog 
of the treasury,'' while a president who uses the veto 
power freely to defeat appropriations for useful pur- 
poses, which have something else in view than the pro- 



THE STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 143 

motion of material interests, is supposed to be animated 
by a stern sense of duty. 

Socialism, fortunately, regards with marked disappro- 
bation, lavishness on the part of private individuals as 
something ethically unjustifiable, because it diverts a 
disproportionately large amount of material wealth for 
the satisfaction of the few, while it favors as commend- 
able all that is best and highest and noblest for public 
purposes. The most beautifully laid out pleasure 
grounds, the finest public libraries, grandly housed, 
magnificent galleries of art, and the noblest architec- 
ture, are held by socialism to be none too good for the 
people ; because they find their best use when employed 
in the public service. Which is the truer ideal of tlie 
two ? If we survey history, we shall be inclined to en- 
tertain little doubt that the periods which meet with 
our most cordial approbation, are those in which private 
frugality was commended and large expenditure for 
public purposes was held to be praiseworthy, while the 
ages of national decay have been ages in which opposite 
ideals and the reverse practices have prevailed. In her 
best days Athens employed a large proportion of all 
public revenues for art in its various forms, and private 
life was comparatively simple, but in the time of the 
decay of Greece, public expenditures declined and pri- 
vate luxury grew apace. The early ages of Eome consti- 
tute a period when hard work and simple life were held 
to honor the citizen, while the best which Eome could 
afford was thought to be none too good for the state. 
A high ideal of the state prevailed until the decline of 
Rome began, and as Rome gradually fell into decay, 
private expenditure increased until luxury became fairly 
wanton. 



144 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

If we hold that it is the purpose of society to offer to 
all, so far as may be, equal opportunities for the develop- 
ment of all faculties, we cannot fail to acknowledge that 
the ideal of socialism, with respect to the consumption of 
wealth, is a noble one. 



THE MORAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 145 



CHAPTER ly. 
THE MORAL STRENGTH OF SOCIAUSM. 

While a non-ethical system of socialism, based on a 
materialistic conception of history, has most unfortu- 
nately for socialism found favor on the part of a large 
faction of socialists, socialism has probably found its 
main strength on its ethical side. The ethical ideals of 
socialism have attracted to it generous souls and have 
enlisted in its ranks its best adherents. It is these 
ethical ideals which have inspired the rank and file of 
the socialistic army \vith fiery zeal and religious devotion. 
It may be said, indeed, that nothing in the present day 
is so likely to awaken the conscience of the ordinary 
man or woman, or to increase the sense of individual 
responsibility, as a thorough course in socialism. The 
study of socialism has proved the turning-point in thou- 
sands of lives, and converted self-seeking men and women 
into self-sacrificing toilers for the masses.^ The impar- 

1 The foUowing iUustrations are offered of the moral earnestness 
produced by socialism : 

*' A young man employed in the Central Post-office at a salary of 
$G50 a year. He lias married a very charming and able girl, also a 
member. They occupy two or three rooms in a suburban house. The 
young lady has been elected as a guardian of the poor, the only woman 
among a number of men. Her husband devotes nearly all his spare 
time, after office hours, to the society's propaganda. He has had a 
little portable desk and stand ma<le for himself, and at this he speaks 
at open spaces, on street corners, or wherever he can get an audience. 
His wife accompanies him and sells literature. Do not suppose tliat 
these are a blatant young demagogue and a conventional strong- 
minded woman. Both are educated, intelligent, of sweet disposition ; 



146 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

tial obseryer can scarcely claim that the Bible produces 
so marked an effect upon the daily, habitual life of the 
average man and the average woman who profess to 
guide their conduct by it, as socialism does upon its ad- 
herents. The strength of socialism in this respect is 
more like that of early Christianity as described in the 
New Testament. 

The person who takes up socialistic works, having a 
conscience at all sensitive, will find it quickened and 
stimulated by passage after passage giving a new view 
of life, which is based upon the worth of every human 
being. Quotation after quotation could be given. Mr. 
Bellamy's "Looking Backward" offers possibility of 
several; but the following has impressed the author of 
the present work as one which is especially strong. 
Edith, the heroine, is shocked to learn that in the 

but the socialist movement has taken hold of them and given them 
something they needed, lifted them above the region of what John 
Morley calls * greasy domesticity,' and taught them that there is a 
great suffering world beyond the four walls of home to be helped and 
worked for. Depend upon it, a movement which can do this has in 
it some promise of the future. 

" Or take the amusing, cynical, remarkable George Bernard Shaw, 
whose Irish humor and brilliant gifts have partly helped, partly 
hindered, the society's popularity. This man will rise from an elab- 
orate criticism of last night's opera or Richter concert (he is the musi- 
cal critic of the World), and after a light, purely vegetarian meal, 
will go down to some far off club in South Lo'idon, or to some street 
corner in East London, or to some recognized place of meeting in one 
of the parks, and will there speak to poor men about their economic 
position and their political duties. People of this sort, who enjoy 
books and music and the theatre and good society, do not go down 
to dreary slums, or even more dreary lecture-rooms, to speak to the 
poorer class of workingmen, without some strong impelling power; 
and it is that power, that motive force, upon which I dwell, as show- 
ing what is doing in the London of to-day.*' *' The Fabian Society,'* 
by William Clarke, in New England Magazine for March, 1894. 



THE MORAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 147 

nineteenth century we permitted people to do things for 
us which we despised them for doing, and we accepted 
services which we would have been unwilling to render. 
Dr. Leete explains to Mr. West the cause of Edith's sur- 
prise in these words : — 

*' To understand why Edith is surprised, you must know that 
nowadays it is an axiom of ethics that to accept a service from 
another which we would be unwilling to return in kind if need 
be, is like borrowing with the intention of not repaying; while to 
enforce such a service by taking advantage of the poverty or 
necessity of a person, would be an outrage like forcible robbery. 
It is the worst thing about any system which divides men, or 
allows them to be divided, into classes and castes, that it weakens 
the sense of a common humanity.'* 

If we go into details somewhat, we find that social- 
ism is strong on its ethical side, because it proposes to 
make real the brotherhood of man. We have long heard 
much talk about the brotherhood of man, and we are all 
aware of the fact that a general belief is expressed in 
this brotherhood; but when bearing in mind the pro- 
fessed doctrine of brotherhood, we observe the conduct 
of brother to brother, in our every-day world, we feel like 
exclaiming, " Words ! Words ! ! Words ! ! ! " It is man- 
ifestly a hollow mockery, and, so far as any real service 
is concerned, most of us would rather be a third cousin to 
a man by blood relationship, than brother in the general 
and indefinite sense of the word, even if the brother do 
call himself a Christian. The conduct of men in their 
economic relations is anything but brotherly. Socialism 
may or may not be practicable, but to it the brotherhood 
of man is something very real. The endeavor of social- 
ism is to carry out the principles of brotherhood in all 
the relations of life, by introducing a social system, in 



148 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

which the maxim shall obtain, " One for all ; all for one." 
The central idea is that each one should contribute to 
the common welfare whatever his strength and capacity 
will permit, and that none shall be permitted to suffer 
for the lack of anything which he really needs, provided 
the resources of society are suJfRcient to satisfy the need. 

An adequate provision for the dependent classes is a 
necessary part of this proposed system of brotherhood. 
This provision is found, as we have already seen, in the 
very structure of society itself; for this includes what 
we might call a mutual insurance system which reaches 
every one, so that the weak and infirm and other indus- 
trially incapable persons have a sure income guaranteed 
them. 

A passage in ^^ Looking Backward" brings out the so- 
cialist idea with regard to those who are now the depen- 
dent classes as well as anything which could be quoted. 
Dr. Leete is again explaining the new society to Mr. 
West, and these words are used : — 

** * A solution which leaves an unaccounted-for residuum, is no 
solution at all ; and our solution of the problem of human society, 
would have been none at all had it left the lame, the sick, and 
the blind outside with the beasts to fare as they might. Better 
far to have left the strong and well unprovided for, than these 
burdened ones, toward whom every heart must yearn, and for 
whom ease of mind. and body should be provided, if for no others. 
Therefore, it is as I told you this morning, that the title of every 
man, woman, and child to the means of existence, rests on no 
basis less plain, broad, and simple, than the fact that they are fel- 
lows of one race — members of one human family. The only coin 
current is the image of God, and that is good for all we have. 

** ' I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch 
so repugnant to modern ideas as the neglect with which you 
treated your dependent classes. Even if you had no pity, no feel- 
ing of brotherhood, how was it that you did not see that you were 



THE MORAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 149 

robbing the incapable classes of their plain right, and leaving 
them unprovided for ? " 

** ' I do not quite follow you there/ I said. * I admit the claims 
of this class to our pity, but how could they, who produce nothing, 
claim a share of the product as a right ? ' 

** * How happened it?' was Dr. Leete's reply, *that your 
workers were able to produce more than so many savages would 
have done ? Was it not wholly on account of the heritage of the 
past knowledge and achievements of the race, the machinery of 
society, thousands of years in contriving, found by you ready 
made to your hand. How did you get to be possessors of this 
knowledge and this history, which represent nine parts to one 
contributed by yourself in the value of your product ? You in- 
herited it, did you not ? And were not these others, these unfor- 
tunate and crippled brothers, whom you cast out, joint inheritors^ 
co-heirs, with you ? What did you do with their share ? Did you 
not rob them when you put them off with crusts, who were en- 
titled to sit with the heirs, and did you not add insult to robbery, 
when you called the crusts charity ? ' " 

It is also a part of this idea of brotherhood, that it 
contemplates a better future for women and children, 
providing for their ample support, making marriage a 
matter of affection and inclination for women, and not 
a matter of economic necessity, and providing for all 
children the opportunities for a happy childhood and a 
full development of all their powers. 

It is a natural corollary from the endeavor to make 
real the brotherhood of man in economic relations, that 
it proposes the establishment of a harmony of industrial 
interests. It is thought by socialists, that the production 
of material goods for use rather than for exchange, will 
harmonize the interests of the members of industrial 
society, for then it becomes the interest of all, that there 
shall be a large and ample production of material goods 
of the best quality. Let us contrast that with production 



150 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFORM. 

of things for exchange. When things are produced for 
exchange, what is wanted is values, and not quantities of 
commodities, as has been already stated; but value, ac- 
cording to a well-known law, depend's upon final utility, 
or utility of the last thing produced, the result of which 
is a constant effort to limit production. 

Eeal social riches consist in abundance, but individual 
interests are always opposed to abundance, in consequence 
of which we have combinations to diminish production, 
and corners and rings to forestall the market, resulting 
in the destruction of cargoes of East Indian spices by 
the Dutch, and of fish by the English in the Thames, 
and of fruit by Americans in New York harbor. The 
arrangement which socialism contemplates is more like 
that which would hold in a family or among friends. If 
there is abundance and plenty for all, we rejoice under 
such circumstances. We say to each one, " Help your- 
self,'' and are glad that we are able to do so. This is 
what happens in the rural districts whenever production 
is there carried on for use rather than for exchange. The 
Southern planter, before the war, who produced apples 
or vegetables for consumption and not for exchange, was 
glad whenever the yield was large ; and it gave him gen- 
uine satisfaction to distribute the surplus among his 
friends and neighbors. 

The same law of scarcity which holds for commodities, 
holds for labor under our present system also. The 
price of labor is kept up by making it scarce, and to pre- 
vent an abundant supply of labor in the branch of indus- 
try which they control, is one of the purposes of labor 
organizations. We thus have, as the result of the law of 
value, which operates in present society, necessary and 
universal antagonism of industrial interests. It is not 



THE MORAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 151 

meant to say that absolutely and in every respect, the 
interests of one man are opposed to the interests of every 
other man, in present industrial society : no socialist would 
claim this, but it is maintained successfully that there is 
necessarily a large amount of antagonism of interests. 
The point arises in competitive production and distribu- 
tion, at which interests diverge. The employer and em- 
ployee, for example, have identical interests up to a cer- 
tain point, but then their interests become more or less 
antagonistic. It is a praiseworthy effort to attempt the 
establishment of a harmony of industrial interests, and 
the claim that socialism provides a harmonious system of 
economic life is a strong one. 

It becomes clear, from all this, that socialism seeks to 
establish an environment favorable to the development of 
moral qualities in human beings ; and unless this feature 
of socialism is carried so far as to make everything, or 
nearly everything, depend upon environment, it is un- 
questionably a strong characteristic of socialism. The 
teaching of modern science, and the outcome of social 
experience of every kind, lay greater and greater stress 
upon environment ; and recent scientific tendencies make 
heredity relatively less important, so far as ordinary 
moral qualities are concerned.^ 

* The fact is frequently overlooked that heredity brings a set of cir- 
cumstances with it, and what really belongs to the circumstances is 
often attributed to the heredity. A change of circumstances shows 
whether a greater influence is to be attributed to the circumstances or 
to the heredity. It has been ascertained that ties of blood and mar- 
riage have long connected a large proportion of the criminal and 
pauper classes in the neighborhood of Indianapolis, Ind. Those thus 
related have been called ** The Tribe of Ishmael." Now the question 
in regard to this '* Tribe of Ishmael " is, which had the greater influ- 
ence, heredity or circumstances? It is demonstrable, however, in 
cases of this kind, as well as in the slums of large cities, that a change 
Df surroundings would produce changed results. Almost invariably a 



152 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

Unquestionably, favorable environment is not enough, 
in itself, but it is often the condition precedent to im- 
provement. Preachers whose traditions have inclined 
them to lay almost exclusive emphasis upon exhortation 
and appeal to the individual conscience^ have gradually 
come to see, that for the most wretched and unfortunate 
classes there is no hope without a change of environment. 
The testimony of three preachers, of three different re- 
ligious bodies, is important in this connection. The 
Eev. Samuel Barnett, for many years rector of St. Jude's 
Church, and warden of Toynbee Hall, London, tells us in 
his work, "Practicable Socialism,'' that in the slums of 
cities the social reformer must precede, or, at any rate, 
accompany, the preacher, unless the latter be himself a 
social reformer. Mr. Barnett is a clergyman of the 
established Church of England; but a leading Metho- 
dist, the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, gives like testimony, 
stating that he has had as much, experience in evangel- 
istic work as any man in England, and that, in his 
opinion, it is of no avail to preach to hungry men. Gen- 
eral Booth of the Salvation Army tells us plainly, in his 
" Darkest England," that it was the hopelessness of at- 
tempting to save the wretched and outcast population of 
London, the " submerged tenth,'' without a change in 
their environment, which led him to advocate his exten- 
sive plans of social reform. 

child taken from such environment and placed under a favorable en- 
vironment becomes a moral citizen, whereas had the old environment 
continued, the child would probably have become a criminal or a pau- 
per. Such statistics as we have show that more than nine out of 
ten children are saved by a change in environment. Heredity would 
seem to have great weight in the case of special talents, as teachers 
have frequent opportunity to observe ; but so far as ordinary moral 
character is concerned, circumstances would appear to be far more 
important. 



THE MORAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM, 153 

The late Mr. Charles Loring Brace, who, through the 
Children's Aid Society, of which he was the founder and 
the sou^ was able to save hundreds of thousands of lives, 
warns us against individualistic religious methods like 
tract distribution, as of no use in the slums. 

After all, this is only a matter of ordinary common- 
sense, based on ample experience. Every man feels, 
for his own family, the importance of environment, and 
he seeks to bring up his own children in a favorable 
environment. A Christian father of a family, who should 
leave his own little boys and girls to grow up in the slums 
of cities, among thieves and prostitutes, is inconceivable. 
Any father of a family, having the power to take his chil- 
dren out of such environment, and who should not do it, 
would be considered a monstrosity. After all, the real 
reason why we hear so much against environment, is be- 
cause the more fortunate classes desire to shirk the indi- 
vidual responsibility which a true doctrine of environment 
brings to them. If each individual, regardless of envi- 
ronment, has an equal chance, of course there is little 
reason why a fortunately situated person should concern 
himself about the wretched inhabitants of the modern 
slum, whereas the true doctrine of environment lays a 
heavy responsibility upon each one who is able in any 
way to change an unfortunate environment. Socialism 
in this, as in other respects, helps to tear off the mask of 
sham and hypocrisy from modern society. 

The structure of society, under socialism, would be such 
as to abolish necessarily the idle classes, and this consti- 
tutes a strong feature of socialism. No one, under social- 
ism, can gain a livelihood without personal exertion ; and 
the maxim of St. Paul, ^^ He who will not work, neither 
shall he eat," would become of universal a})plication. 



154 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

At the present time^ we are making some attempt to 
abolish idleness on the part of poor people, but we have 
not seriously attacked the problem of the i#le rich. 
Socialism is strong, then, because it attempts to abolish 
all idle classes, and idleness is morally pernicious. 

Socialists claim that socialism would improve and ele- 
vate government, and would raise into prominence a nobler 
class of men. It may be urged that socialism would im- 
prove government, because it would make government a 
matter of vital concern to all the inhabitants of a country, 
and would draw into the service of the government all 
the moral strength and talent of the country. At the 
present time, on the contrary, government is a matter of 
such minor concern to large and influential classes, that 
they neglect it altogether, and very many powerful per- 
sons promote their economic interests by the degradation 
of government. Under socialism, the prosperity of all 
would depend upon the character of the socialistic ad- 
ministration, and socialism could hope to avail itself of 
the full mental capacity and moral strength of the com- 
munity. If socialism could be made to work, it cannot 
be said that its claim, that it would bring into prominence 
a nobler class of men, and would produce nobler men, is 
unfounded. Those who have great fortunes, under our 
existing system, have such positions of prominence and 
power that they cannot be ignored. People must do them 
honor, because they fear to do otherwise. A governor of 
an American commonwealth was, not long ago, reproved 
because he would not join in the reception tendered to an 
industrial magnate whose methods had been such that he 
could not give them his approbation; for he held that 
these methods, introduced into the State of which he was 
governor, would not tend to its development "in the line 



THE MORAL STRENGTH OF SOCIALISM. 155 

of public good.'' His judgment in regard to the moral 
character of the man was not called in question, but he 
was criticised because this man, held by many to be 
guilty even of penitentiary offences, had such power that 
he could either help or injure the section of the country 
which he was visiting. 

Socialists hold that, under socialism, elevation to posi- 
tions of importance would be based upon moral qualifica- 
tions, in part at least. They furthermore urge that the 
nature of public business is such that it is ennobling. A 
great leader in private business has his attention con- 
centrated upon himself or upon a few stock-holders, 
whereas public life enlarges the horizon, and the right 
thinking person who administers public business, does so 
with reference to the good of the whole people. It 
may be justly urged that it is public and not private 
life which has given us a Washington, a Lincoln.^ The 

1 A critic replies : *' It is doubtless true that private service would 
not give us a Washington or a Lincoln, and it is equally true that 
public service would not give us a Fulton, a Whitney, a Morse, a 
Westinghouse, or an Edison." 

This is by no means clear to those who know what is going on in 
the laboratories of the universities in different parts of the world. 
And it must be remembered that, taking the world as a whole, the 
greater part of its activity is conducted by those who are in the public 
service, namely, the professors and their assistants in the State uni- 
versities. It is safe to say that those men who are named could not 
have done their work had it not been for the preliminary work car- 
ried on in the laboratories of universities. Morse is not the only 
name to be mentioned in connection with the telegraph. Professor 
Henry's name also has an honorable record as tlie inventor of what 
was essential in the telegraph, and, animated by the spirit which 
obtains in the public service at the best, he refused to take out a 
patent. There are, indeed, those who do not recognize the claims of 
Morse to originality in the practical application of the telegraph ; but, 
of course, it is not necessary for us to enter upon a discussion of this 
controverted point. It is certain that Morse's work was based upon 



156 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFOBM, 

heroes of men are those who have served States, and not 
those who have served private corporations. This shows 
us why, as John Stuart Mill pointed out, war, and not 
private business, has heretofore been the chief school of 
the social virtues. War has an anti-social character, in- 
somuch as it is waged by one society of men against an- 
other ; but it is carried on to advance the interest of a 
country, and the soldier feels that he is struggling for 
his land, and for it he is ready to give up life itself. His 
occupation cultivates in him generous habits of mind, and 
a sense of common danger draws him near to his fellow- 
soldiers.^ 

a great deal of previous activity of a public nature. Public service 
has given us a Bunsen, a Helmholtz, a Virchow, and many others who 
quite hold their own with the names mentioned. What reason have 
we, after all, to say that an Edison would not have given us his best, 
had he worked in a public laboratory ? Those who are familiar with 
the work going on in the laboratories of universities, know that the 
entire time and strength of those engaged in these universities is 
given to their work, and, as a rule, the last thing of which they think 
is large pecuniary returns. Professor Babcock, in the State University 
of Wisconsin, invented a milk tester, which, it has been asserted, is 
worth to the State every year the entire cost of the university ; and a 
professor in the University of Kansas has likewise, it is claimed, 
made discoveries which are worth, to the State of Kansas, the entire 
cost of that university. Professor Babcock refused to patent his 
invention because he did not think it was right for him to do so, as he 
was in the service of the State. 

However, it is not incumbent upon the author of the present work, 
to show that aU our inventions and improvements could result from 
public life, inasmuch as he endeavors, in the latter part of the book, 
to demonstrate the importance of a large field for private enterprise. 

1 " Until laborers and employers perform the work of industry in 
the spirit in which soldiers perform that of an army, industry will 
never be moralized, and military life will remain, what, in spite of 
the anti-social character of its direct object, it has hitherto been, the 
chief school of moral co-operation." — The Positive Philosophy of 
Auguste Comte, by John Stuart Mill, New York, 1887, p. 135. 



SOCIALISM AS A PROMOTER OF ART. 157 



CHAPTER V. 
SOCIALISM AS A PROMOTER OP ART. 

It is likely to awaken surprise on the part of those 
who have not given attention to socialism, to learn that 
among people of artistic temperament, it meets with 
much favor. Poets, painters, and authors of talent are 
much inclined to view socialisij^ with a certain sympa- 
thy, and there are many of them who are even outspoken 
in their adherence to it. John Ruskin advocates some- 
thing like socialism, although of an aristocratic kind ; 
and William Morris, regarded by many as the worthiest 
of the English poets to hold the post of Poet Laureate, 
is not only a socialist, but a rather extreme socialist. 
Alfred Hayes, prominent among the younger English 
poets, and Walter Crane, the artist, are members of the 
Fabian Society.^ Our own James Eussell Lowell at 
one time said a good word in behalf of socialism, and 
probably Mr. W. D. Ho wells would no longer object 
to being classed among the socialists. 

What is the explanation of this fact, which may at 
first seem a striking and surprising one ? The explana- 
tion is found in the unfavorable atmosphere for art and 
literature which is created by competitive industrialism. 
Art can thrive only when it is encouraged by a favorable 

1 " The Fabian Society," by William Clarke, in the New EnglaiK^ 
Magazine for March, 1894, 



158 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

social environment.^ Poverty on the part of the many 
and wealth on the part of a few, are alike held to be fatal 
to the highest art or literature. Leisure and moderate 
comfort on the part of the private citizen, with a grand 
public life, create the atmosphere in which art thrives. 
If we look back upon the past, we find that national feel- 
ing in its expansive periods has produced a large part of 
all that is great in art and literature. Three periods may 
be called to mind : the age of Pericles, when Greek art 
and literature achieved grand success ; the age of Augus- 
tus, which was called the Golden Age ; and the age of 
Elizabeth in England, which produced Shakespeare. 
Man achieves great things when in him the national life 
pulsates, and through him the nation speaks ; but when 
the national life is mean, man's spirit finds no high plane 
of thought and expression. Architecture achieved its 
grandest success in the Middle Ages, when national feel- 
ing was becoming powerful, and the age in which this 
success was attained was not peculiarly a commercial 
age. It is often said in the United States that when we 
become richer we shall have a true art ; but if what ar- 
tists tell us is true, what art has to dread in the United 
States is a plutocracy. The increase of wealth, with 
present methods of distribution, would seem to be more 
likely to bring danger with it than promise to art. 
What is really wanted is more leisure and comfort for 
the masses, more joy in work, and a genuine revival of 
true national feeling. 

Art is essentially public and not private in its destina- 

1 **The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, 
and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited 
or gladly entertained hy men around him." — Emerson: Enrjlish 
Traits^ chap, iv., on Race. 



SOCIALISM AS A PROMOTER OF ART. 169 

tion, and if it achieves its grandest success, must min- 
ister to society, and not to millionaires. This, at any 
rate, is the socialistic view. One socialistic writer com- 
plains that ^ " now a clever workman is kept at tasks 
prescribed by plutocrats, and must produce baronial 
sideboards, and the deft-fingered girl hideous artificial 
flowers/' He tells us the gold standards of plutocracy 
are not art standards, and that an atmosphere is pro- 
duced by competition, and plutocracy resulting there- 
from, in which art cannot thrive ; '' that competition ties 
the craftsman hand and foot, but art implies indepen- 
dence." Another socialist, in speaking of the creed of 
philosophic radicalism in England, which included clas- 
sical political economy, says that : 

'' It was essentially a creed of Murdstones and Gradgrinds, 
and the first revolt came from the artistic side ; the nest of sing- 
ing birds of the lakes would have none of it." 

Mr. William Morris, in an article upon the socialist 
ideal, ^ makes a plea for socialism from the standpoint 
of art, and uses these words ; 

'' The great mass of effective art, that which pervades all life, 
must be the result of the harmonious co-operation of neighbors; 
and the rich man has no neighbors, nothing but rivals and par- 
asites. . . . When people once more take pleasure in their work, 
when the pleasure rises to a certain point, the expression of it 
will become irresistible, and that expression of pleasure is art, 
whatever form it may take." 

Mr. Morris says that we must abolish the privilege 
of private persons to destroy the beauty of the earth 
for their private advantage, and he explains that the 

J See Church Reformer^ March, 1890. 
2 See Neio Rev lev), January, 1891. 



160 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

richest man has now license to injure the commonwealth 
to the full extent of his riches. 

One of the most learned English churchmen, Dr. West- 
cott, now Bishop of Durham, writes on art in the same 
spirit in his work on the Epistles of St. John. He says 
of Christian art that : 

"It aims not at a solitary, but a common enjoyment; it seeks 
to make it clear that all to which it is directed has a spiritual 
value, able to command completest service. ... If this view of 
art which has been given is correct, its primary destination is 
public, not private, and it culminates in worship. Neither a great 
picture nor a great poem can be for a single possessor; and so it 
has been at all times, when art has risen to its highest triumphs. 
. . . When Greek art was greatest, it was consecrated to public 
use, and one chief danger of modern society is lest the growth of 
private wealth should lead to the diversion of the highest artistic 
power from the common service." 

One of the best presentations of art, from the social- 
istic standpoint, is given in an article in the Christian 
Union (now The Outlook) for December 17, 1893, and is 
entitled ^^ Ideal Art for the People.'' 

The following quotation gives the gist of the socialistic 
thought : ^ — 

*' The art of the city, in the day when painters, sculptors, and 
master-singers were in full tide of work and song, did not rest in 
the genius of the few, but in the mood of the many. The instinct 
for beauty, and the training which recognized it under all forms, 
were universal ; for art grows out of a deep, rich soil, and grows 

1 Mr. Wm. Morris gives an extremely interesting presentation of 
his views concerning art, in an address entitled ** Art and Socialism,'' 
published by W, Reeves, London, 1884. A Boston architect, Mr. J. 
Pickering Putnam, treats the subject of architecture in its relations 
to socialism, under the title of ''Architecture under Nationalism," a 
monograph published by the Nationalist Educational Association, 
Boston, i89Q, 



SOCIALISM AS A PROMOTER OF ART. 161 

only when such soil is provided for it. It may produce sporadi- 
cally in an alien atmosphere, but it is never productive of great 
works, on a great scale, unless it is representative of a wide popu- 
lar impulse and sympathy, unless it is national or racial. In this 
country, as in England, art does not really touch our life; it is not 
yet one of our natural forms of expression : we do not understand 
its inmiense importance in a rich and rounded civilization; nor 
do we realize how much we are losing a homely, every-day content 
and rest. A real, living art means beauty in dress and habit, joy 
in the manual industries in the production of things sound and 
harmonious; it means striving for the ideal in common occupa- 
tions, and spiritual and intellectual rest and delight in common 
work. 

" We think of art as a luxury, an embellishment, the delicate 
growth of a fortunate age, and the choice work of a favored few. 
It is to-day, and in this country, largely the possession of the rich. 
Nothing could be farther from a true idea of art or a true use of 
it. Great art is a sturdy, vigorous plant, demanding a rich soil, a 
broad sky, and free winds ; it is never an exotic, to be nourished 
delicately by a few, and kept from contact with the vulgar world. 
It is great only when it is so much a part of the world that it is 
its most inevitable and unforced expression. The Greek tragedies 
and Shakespeare's plays were part of the intensest popular life of 
their time." 



162 SOClALlsk AND SOCIAL REFOEM, 



CHAPTER YI. 
SOCIALISM AND PRESENT PROBLEMS. 

One of the problems of to-day is a simplification of 
government, and the socialist claims that socialism will 
solve this problem. A certain force cannot be denied to 
this argument. Laws are multiplied now without end, 
and it is extremely difficult to know what is and what is 
not legal under the complex conditions of modern life. 
It is also very hard to avoid pernicious legislation, be- 
cause it requires such incessant watching on the part of 
well-meaning, intelligent citizens. 

Socialism puts forward the claim that it would reduce 
law-making to a minimum, and would almost abolish 
courts. If one examines our statute books, one will find 
that by far the greater portion of legislation concerns 
private property in the instruments of production, and 
that litigation also finds its basis in the same institution. 
Naturally this legislation and this litigation would be 
abolished with the abolition of the institution upon 
which it all rests. A comparison of the post-office with 
our American railways would illustrate this point. The 
law in regard to the post-office is comparatively concise 
and simple, and the post-office seldom figures in lawsuits. 
On the other hand, how endless is the legislation con- 
cerning privately owned railways ! How complex and 
complicated is it! How continuously does the private 
railway figure in lawsuits ! The administrative problem 
under socialism might become more difficult than pres- 



SOCIALISM AND PRESENT PROBLEMS. 163 

ent public administration, but law would be greatly sim- 
plified, and the basis of most litigation before the courts 
would disappear. 

But this is not all ; how difficult a problem is taxation ! 
The national Congress and the legislatures of forty-four 
States and the municipal authorities of hundreds of 
cities are all struggling with this problem, and the 
amount of progress which has been accomplished during 
the past generation is discouragingly small. Unques- 
tionably, our methods of taxation could be vastly im- 
proved; but taxation must ever remain a difficult problem. 
The whole problem, however, practically disappears under 
socialism. With production socialized it would only be 
necessary for society to take out of the total product in 
advance what was needed for public purposes before the 
distribution among the citizens should be effected. 

Still another problem : What of the eight-hour day ? 
The eight-hour day is plainly an ideal, but yet an ex- 
tremely difficult one to realize under present conditions, 
look at it as we will. Each man cannot settle it for him- 
self, because in modern production those engaged in the 
same industrial establishment must, as a rule, work the 
same length of time ; but even those in one industrial 
establishment cannot decide the problem for themselves, 
because they are under compulsion which springs from 
the competition of other industrial establishments in the 
same country and even in other countries. 

The eight-hour day has involved in many a conflict 
employer and employee ; and yet, unfortunately, the em- 
ployer is w^ell nigh as powerless to effect a change as the 
employee. Socialism, harmonizing industrial interests, 
would make the problem a comparatively simple one. 
The more men produced, the more they would have to 



164 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

enjoy ; and it would remain for society to determine on 
the one hand, how much greater would be the production 
of wealth resulting from a ten-hour day than from an 
eight-hour day ; and second, whether the additional pro- 
duction was more or less valuable than the additional 
time. 

Compulsory education is another problem which, at 
best, must occasion difficulties so long as the present com- 
petitive system endures. It is a cruel hardship to chil- 
dren not to give them educational advantages ; but to do 
so sometimes deprives a dependent parent, for example, 
a widowed mother, of what she needs for her support. 
Doubtless it is better to do this than to allow a child to 
grow up in ignorance ; or, at any rate, it is better to pro- 
vide in some other way for the mother; but this does 
not render the problem an easy one. Yet this is only one 
of the difficulties which an attempt to secure a universal 
education encounters in actual practice. It is frequently 
found that the children in the schools in the poorer quar- 
ters of the cities have no decent clothing, and that they 
are often unable to study, because actually hungry. 
Compulsory education, then, to be really effective, in- 
volves in numerous cases the problem of furnishing food 
and clothing to children as well as schools. Manifestly, 
if socialism can be made to work at all well, the difficul- 
ties of compulsory education simply disappear. 

Insurance against the economic contingencies which 
beset the ordinary man is one of the pressing problems 
of the day. Germany has elaborated a system under 
the operation of which some twenty millions of human 
beings are more or less adequately insured; and the 
problem is actively discussed in every European country. 
It is only a matter of time when insurance will become 



SOCIALISM AND PRESENT PROBLEMS. 165 

one of the pressing problems of the day in the United 
States. Yet, whether we adopt the German method, or 
one of the numerous other methods which have been 
suggested, the difficulties are immense ; while to do 
nothing will probably be an impossibility at no distant 
day. The structure of society under socialism is such 
that it solves the problem. 

Private monopoly, with all its difficulties, manifestly 
disappears under socialism. So we can take up one 
problem of the day after another, and we shall find that 
socialism provides a solution for them. We can question 
whether socialism can be made to work in practice or 
not ; but we cannot well deny that if socialism is practi- 
cable, it brings with it the solution of these questions. 



166 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFOllM. 



CHAPTER YII. 

SERVICES WHICH THE AGITATION OP SOCIALISM 
HAS RENDERED. 

The statement has already been made that we may 
look at the strength of socialism from two standpoints : 
First, from the standpoint of a program of complete 
social reconstruction, and second, from the standpoint of 
socialistic agitation. We pass now from the first stand- 
point to the second, and consider the benefits which the 
agitation of socialism has brought us. 

First, we may mention the general awakening of con- 
science, with respect to social conditions, which it has 
produced. Probably there never was a time when, gen- 
erally speaking, the consciences of men were so sensitive 
with regard to the lot of the poor and unfortunate as at 
the present day ; and this is very largely the direct, and 
also the indirect, effect of the activity of socialism, for it 
has promoted the discussion of all economic questions 
from an ethical standpoint. Even the non-ethical social- 
ism has had this effect, because it has largely lost its 
non-ethical character when it has been brought under 
the requirements of practical agitation. What socialism 
really desires is that the economic life should be entirely 
subordinate to the other departments of social life. It 
wishes leisure and opportunity for the cultivation of the 
higher faculties. Socialism has thus performed an im- 
portant service in showing what may, at least conceiv- 
ably, be accomplished by making a struggle for material 
interests merely a basis of higher things. 



BENEFITS OF AGITATION' OF SOCIALISM. 167 

Socialism has aided men to picture to themselves an 
ideal society, and has familiarized them with the idea of 
social change and progress. This has resulted in a wide- 
spread desire to move in the direction of the ideal, and to 
approximate it as nearly as may be. The result has been 
that a needed interest in economic questions has been 
awakened among anti-socialists as well as socialists. 

Formerly an excessive emphasis was laid on the indi- 
vidual side of economic life, and this was the outcome 
of the individualistic philosophy of the latter part of the 
eighteenth century. Socialism has laid a needed empha- 
sis upon the social side of economic life. When new 
measures and projects are brought forward, socialism 
teaches us to look at them from the standpoint of society 
as a whole, and not from that of individual promoters 
merely. It is not meant to be said that this was impos- 
sible without socialism, but attention is called simply to 
the undoubted fact that socialism was needed to familiar- 
ize us with the point of view which one gets from looking 
at economic questions from the standpoint of society as a 
whole. Even up to the present day, we, in the United 
States, are accustomed to regard projects and measures 
simply from the standpoint of the immediate interests of 
a few. 

A few men wish a charter for a street railway, or a 
steam railway, or they desire the privilege of furnishing 
gas to a city. It is evident that the project will promote 
the interests of those immediately concerned, and usually 
they receive what they desire almost without conditions. 
When, however, enterprises of this sort are viewed from 
the standpoint of society as a whole, we begin to ask our- 
selves whether society could not do better than to hand 
over to private individuals, er corporations, such impor- 



168 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFOEM. 

tant services without conditions of any sort. But, as soon 
as the question is asked, a divergence appears between 
public and private interests. It is seen, for example, 
that even with private enterprises it is better to have a 
limited than an unlimited charter, in order that society 
may, at some future time, have the right to take hold of 
the enterprise, and manage it directly, or that it may sell 
the privilege to persons willing to pay for it its market 
price. Eeflection upon the bearings of such enterprise, 
when viewed from the standpoint of society, reveals, 
furthermore, the injustice in society of giving away priv- 
ileges to a few persons, which have a pecuniary signifi- 
cance, based upon the fact that they yield a surplus over 
and above the returns to labor and to capital. If socialism 
had, early in our history, familiarized us with thoughts of 
this kind, it would have saved to the people of the United 
States hundreds of millions of dollars. The claim is 
made, by one long familiar with the finances of New 
York City, that the value of franchises given away in 
that city, and thus enriching the few at the expense 
of the many, would be sufficient to defray all the ex- 
penses of the government of New York City. While 
this does not seem so bad wlien the matter is viewed 
simply from the standpoint of the individual, viewed 
from the standpoint of society, it appears like a wicked 
robbery of the public, and we see that there is not a 
working woman in New York City who has not vir- 
tually been robbed for the benefit of a favored few ; 
for, had the public interest been guarded, it would be 
easy to have three-cent street-car fares in New York City 
or on each fare to have a surplus of two cents to be em- 
ployed for public purposes, in the benefits of which all 
would share. If we take up one class of undertakings 



BENEFITS OF AGITATION OF SOCIALISM. 169 

after another, and view them from the standpoint of 
socialism, we shall find light thrown upon the public 
interests. Socialism has thus a high educational value. 

But the question is naturally raised by socialism, 
whether industrial undertakings shall be at all handed 
over to private individuals or corporations. Socialism 
claims that society, as a whole, should provide for the 
satisfaction of economic wants ; and while, very gener- 
ally, this claim has not been admitted with reference to 
industry as a whole, new light has been thrown upon the 
industrial functions of government, as one industry after 
another has been studied from the social standpoint. 
There are now large classes who will go at least part 
way with the socialists. As the result of socialism, in 
part at least, we have a better classification of industrial 
undertakings, showing us that these undertakings differ 
among themselves in material respects, and that the ad- 
vantages of private industry do not hold equally for 
them all. 

The foregoing is only one respect in which socialism 
has modified, fortunately, the older political economy. 
It has compelled an examination of the social order itself. 
Older economists took simply for granted the funda- 
mental features of the existing social order. Private 
property, freedom of person, free contract, and vested in- 
terests were assumed as a mere matter of course. Social- 
ists criticised these institutions, and the result has been 
a careful, analytical, and historical examination of them. 
This examination has revealed the fact that they them- 
selves are growths, developing like other institutions, 
and capable of beneficial modifications. The criticisms 
of socialism have also led to a re-examination of the doc- 
trines of value and price, with great advantage to politi- 



170 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFORM. 

cal economy, and perhaps there is scarcely any doctrine 
of economics, which has not, to a greater or less extent, 
been brought under the influence of socialism, and re- 
ceived beneficial modification. 

The agitation of socialism has had a tendency to im- 
prove government. What has already been stated has 
indicated several lines of reform which the agitation of 
socialism has promoted. The socialistic platforms are, 
as a rule, divided into two parts, the first of which con- 
tains a statement of the ultimate ideal, and the second 
of which presents immediate demands. Now, many of 
these immediate demands are such that they have found 
general favor, and in some instances acceptance. 

We may name among them plans to improve and ex- 
tend local self-government, and to educate the voter ; 
also various measures designed to improve sanitary con- 
ditions in factories, to protect the life and health of the 
wage-earner, and to throw safeguards about women and 
children ; all of which would fall under the general head 
of factory legislation. Everything designed to purify 
government, and to protect the ballot, finds support on 
the part of the socialists. The socialists are now in- 
clined to take the position that what is needed to bring 
about socialism is not a reaction from excessive misery, 
but a strong and intelligent wage-earning population. 
If the reader will consult various socialistic programs 
given in the Appendix, he will see that there are many 
" immediate demands '' which must receive general ap- 
proval. But this is not all ; socialism conveys to the 
masses the idea that political questions are far larger 
than personal questions, and that it is a degradation of 
government to make political questions centre about the 
distribution of booty, whether that take the form of fat 



Mnefits of agitation of socialism. I7l 

contracts, or offices, designated in the parlance of the 
day as '^ plums '^ or ^^ snaps." 

Socialism makes questions of government something 
far more than contests of office-holders and office-seekers. 
Socialism makes government real, live, vital, because it 
is felt that so much is at stake in politics. Perhaps 
nothing is more calculated to improve government than 
a generous leaven of the best kind of socialistic thought. 

Proof can be seen in various quarters. When the so- 
cial democrats gained control of several cities in Saxony, 
Germany, the excellence of their administration was 
admitted by all. London, also, offers remarkable proof, 
for socialism has been largely instrumental in making 
the administration of London a model for all other 
cities. Mr. Frederick Harrison, not himself a socialist, 
says that the London County Council of 1889 " was the 
most definitely democratic and reforming body of men 
ever elected in England." He adds, — 

** The council has proved itself the most economical municipal- 
ity which any great city possesses, or, perhaps, ever had, . . . 
and is, beyond doubt, the purest and most honest. The curse of 
all great cities is corruption. . . , London has now a munici- 
pality which is absolutely free from this taint or even the suspi- 
cion of it. . . . The council is the first municipal authority in 
this metropolis which has shown a steady, earnest, and intelligent 
desire to raise the condition of the people. . . . No more hon- 
est, hard-working, zealous, self-sacrificing body of public ser- 
vants has ever served a great city. No capital in the world ever 
had so incorruptible a municipal authority; nor did any have 
such eminent trained public servants to lead it. It is a pattern 
to the world for economy, for industry, for earnestness in the 
cause of the people/' 



PART III. 

THE WEAKNESS OF SOCIALISM. 



PART III. 
THE WEAKNESS OF SOCIALISM. 



CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTORY. 

Socialism is as strong as the strongest presentation 
which can be made of it. This must be clearly borne in 
mind by all students of the subject, for in the course 
of statement and re-statement socialism will be made 
stronger than any presentation of it which has ever yet 
been given. No impartial person can deny this, any 
more than any such person can deny that it has become 
stronger in its program as time has gone on, and this 
program has been elaborated and improved. 

What, in its nature, is the weakness of socialism ? 
When we examine into this weakness, we must direct 
our attention to what is essential in socialism, and not 
to accidental features attached to it by this, that, or the 
other socialist. 

Socialism in England and America can be appreciated 
in its full strength only when it becomes entirely 
emancipated from the materialistic conception of his- 
tory advanced by Karl Marx; for in neither country 
can socialism meet with favor wlien it finds its basis in 
materialism. 

Every modern student must admit the great influence 
of economic conditions, especially of the production, dis- 

175 



176 * SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

tribution, and exchange of material goods upon the whole 
of life ; but to make everything depend upon economic 
forces, is shutting one's eyes to other forces, equally 
great and sometimes greater ; and one must be blind 
to historical and actual phenomena who would make 
religion merely a product of economic life. Religion is 
an independent force, often sufficient to modify and even 
to shape economic institutions. How can it be claimed 
that our material economy is a cause of religion, when 
we find religious beliefs so diverse flourishing with like 
economic conditions ? This is not the place to examine 
the philosophy of materialism; but it can scarcely be 
called an exaggerated statement to say that it is an 
antiquated philosophy, — at any rate, in the crude form 
in which it is presented by Marx's socialism. 

Similarly, it is a weakness in one presentation of 
socialism, which does not touch the essence of social- 
ism, to make it depend upon a precise and accurately 
defined law of evolution, which is as inflexible -as cast- 
iron. 

Society is not an automaton. That society has some 
option, some choice, and a conscience to which an appeal 
can be made, is a fact, if there is any such thing as a fact 
at all. There is a specious appearance of strength in 
the claim that the evolution of society is such that 
things must become worse and worse ; wages falling, 
relatively at least, crises inevitably increasing in fre- 
quency and in severity, and the concentration of pro- 
duction going forward, until ultimately we must choose 
between private or public monopoly in every branch of 
industry. Such a law of evolution makes socialism turn 
upon the historical and statistical proof that can be 
brought forward to substantiate it. We consequently 



THE WEAKNESS OF SOCIALISM. 177 

have whole volumes of statistics, compiled either to 
substantiate or to refute socialism, when based upon 
this law of evolution. So far as these statistics are 
concerned, it must be said that they are nearly worth- 
less. Each one seems to prove his point, but it is 
because his statistical presentation is incomplete. Prob- 
ably there is no sufficient statistical record in existence 
to enable us either to prove or to disprove the Marxist 
law of social evolution. But socialism does not depend 
upon this law. If it could be completely refuted to-mor- 
row, in such manner that every one would have to admit 
its refutation, socialism would not be weakened thereby, 
except, perhaps, temporarily. 

The real nature of the question at issue is this : Are 
there general tendencies which are more or less favorable 
to a socialistic organization of production and distribu- 
tion ? Every one will admit that industrial society must, 
in the future, be shaped with reference to actual existing 
social forces, although more than one outcome of these 
forces is conceivable. Then, if we decide in the affirma- 
tive, as we must, that there are certain social, or, speaking 
more accurately, socio-economic forces, working favorably 
to socialism, we have to decide whether the socialistic 
outcome of this social evolution is that which is, on the 
whole, the more desirable. 

A part of this so-called scientific law of social evolution 
is a doctrine of value, which makes value depend upon 
labor-time, and finds the profits of capital and the source 
of new wealth in a surplus value created by labor, and 
filched from labor by the capitalist. The scientific cast 
which this law of value seems to give to socialism is 
merely a superficial appearance. Socialism does not 
depend upon a law of value ; and the refutation of any 



1?8 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL UJEFOUM, 

particular socialistic law of value leaves socialism, as a 
practical force, as strong as it was before. 

The situation is simply this : At the present time the 
instruments of production are privately owned, and indus- 
try is privately managed. This necessitates the exist- 
ence of rent, interest, and profits. Manifestly, the entire 
product of industry cannot, under such conditions, go 
to labor, and there must be idle classes living on rent 
and interest. Moreover, the capitalist must, under exist- 
ing conditions, receive, in addition to returns for personal 
exertions, a return for the ownership of the instruments 
of production. The vital questions are : Can this be so 
changed and such an economic organization be brought 
about that the ownership of the instruments of produc- 
tion will be vested in society as a whole ? In the second 
place, we have to ask the question whether or not this is 
desirable even if it is practicable. Manifestly, the wage- 
earner must like to add to his wages the advantages of 
partial ownership of the instruments of production ; and 
it is only natural that he should desire to participate in 
the management of production. It is really a great weak- 
ness in a presentation of socialism to call rent, interest, 
and profits, robbery, although they are appropriated by 
capitalists and other classes than wage-earners. Natur- 
ally, the wage-earner cannot be blamed because he desires 
a reorganization which will compel all capable persons 
to render useful personal service, and to enable society 
as a whole to enjoy benefits which now accrue to the few. 
The Fabian Society in England has been able to exercise 
an immense influence upon English thought, and a 
decided influence upon English practice, because it has 
emancipated itself from a pseudo-scientific presentation 
of socialism, which was, after all, full of revolting 
crudities. 



THE WEAKNESS OF SOCIALISM. 179 

It follows naturally from what has been said, that it is 
not by any means necessary to make socialism a purely 
working-class movement. The question of socialism is 
one which concerns all classes of society ; and it is by no 
means evident that wage-earners will obtain greater 
benefit than any other social class, if socialism can be 
made to work as well as its adherents claim. What is 
called an " all-classes socialism '' is stronger than a work- 
ing-class socialism. Socialism has been made largely a 
working-class movement in Germany, but this has had 
a most unfortunate effect. Every well-wisher of the 
United States and England will hope that socialism, in 
these two countries, may lack the narrowness as well 
as the bitterness which accompanies it if it becomes a 
working-class movement. It may be said that in Ger- 
many socialism has tended to become more conservative 
as the socialistic party has become a great power in the 
land, and that it has lost something of its working-class 
character to its own great gain. The strength that 
socialism has, has largely come to it from others than 
wage-earners. Marx and Lassalle were far enough 
removed by birth and position and training from the 
wage-earning class of Germany. Liebknecht and Bebel, 
as has already been mentioned, are the leaders of Germ a- 1 
social democracy to-day ; and Liebknecht was once a 
university student, and Bebel a prosperous manufacturer 
and employer. Robert Owen, the earliest English social- 
ist, was an industrial magnate ; and a large proportion of 
the strength of socialism in England comes from men 
who have been trained at the English universities. Uni- 
versity men also figure prominently in American social- 
ism. Men of such character must be drawn into the 
socialist movement from conscientious motives, if it is to 



180 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

become powerful. The appeal to self-interest of the 
masses is proper in its own place, but that is not suffi- 
cient. The one who overlooks the capacity in man for 
self-sacrifice and devotion to others, excludes social facts 
as real as any which can be mentioned, and, moreover, 
facts nowhere seen more plainly than in the history of 
socialism itself. 



ALLEGED OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM. 181 



CHAPTER II. 
AIiIiEGED, BUT NOT VALID, OBJECTIONS TO SOCIAIilSM. 

When we survey the various current arguments against 
socialism, we are obliged to divide them into two classes. 
By far the more numerous class of arguments is composed 
of those which rest upon either misapprehension or wilful 
misrepresentation. They are not arguments which can 
be advanced by any one who is at the same time intelli- 
gent and ingenuous. Arguments of the second class, 
however, are arguments which are advanced by those 
who fully understand what socialism means, and feel 
that socialism should be treated honestly. They consti- 
tute the serious objections to socialism, pointing out the 
difficulties which stand in the way of its realization. 
Each writer who is opposed to socialism will have a 
different view with regard to the weightiest objections 
to its proposals. But it is the purpose of the author of 
the present work to present those objections to socialism 
which seem to him to have most weight. 

It may first of all be well to give some little attention 
to the arguments against socialism which cannot be 
regarded as valid. Of course, it would require a book 
much longer than the present work to take up one after 
the other all these fallacious and misleading arguments ; 
but a few of the more common objections of the kind 
named will be discussed briefly, by way of illustration. 

When we survey the various arguments against social- 



182 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL UEPOUM, 

ism in different countries, we cannot fail to be impressed 
with the fact that that is held to be a valid objection in 
one country which is not so regarded in another country. 
An illustration is afforded by free public schools. German 
writers, and until recently English writers, have regarded 
the proposal of the socialists to abolish tuition fees as 
decidedly objectionable. There may be differences of 
opinion among Americans, but undoubtedly a vast 
majority of the citizens of the United States give to free 
schools their cordial indorsement, regard them as one 
of the bulwarks of the republic, and attack vigorously 
any one who attempts to undermine them. On the other 
hand, the idea of public ownership and management of 
railways is regarded by many Americans as the chief 
weakness in the program of socialism, while Germans, 
as a rule, regard such ownership and management as 
something desirable. They tell us that the test of 
experience has settled the question for them. These 
illustrations suggest caution, and a careful survey of the 
operation of existing institutions in different lands. 

The failure of communistic experiments in the United 
States and elsewhere is often urged as an objection 
against modern socialism ; but, in reality, these experi- 
ments, while more or less instructive, throw little light 
upon the socialism of to-day. Some of them have 
succeeded; most of them have failed. But had all 
failed, that would scarcely constitute an argument of 
weight against proposals like those which we are called 
upon to consider. The earlier communism of this cen- 
tury represented ideals which find their basis in an 
earlier stage of industrial development ; in so far, at any 
rate, as this communism attempted to propose something 
for universal adoption. The communistic village based 



ALLEGED OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM. 18B 

upon voluntary agreement corresponded to a period of 
production on a small scale, when each large household 
group could hope to become economically almost self-suf- 
ficient. When production is carried on on a vast national 
and international scale, the socialism proposed must be 
national and international. The difficulties in the way 
of a communistic village are sufficiently apparent when 
one views them in the light of past experience, or when 
one examines the methods of production and distribution 
of the present time. A communistic village must be 
dependent at the present moment, when production is 
carried on for exchange, upon outsiders who have no con- 
nection with communism, and who are often bitterly 
opposed to it. Railways and telegraphs may be adduced 
as simply two important illustrations of many which 
might be mentioned. The management of these enter- 
prises, privately owned and operated, cannot be expected 
to conform to the requirements of communistic settle- 
ments. Moreover, such settlements would not afford the 
freedom of movement and the possibilities of organiza- 
tion and reorganization which are required at the present 
day. When socialism is nationally organized, a man 
can move about the country to find the place which is 
most agreeable to him, and for which he is best adapted. 
Whatever his talente and his acquisitions, they are not 
lost to the socialistic state because he moves from one 
city to another. The condition of things is exactly the 
reverse in a communistic village. It is quite conceivable 
that the man who is most essential to the life and indus- 
tries of such a village in the North may find it necessary, 
on account of his health, to move to Florida, and he thus 
becomes lost to communism. Moreover, in any commun- 
istic village there will very likely fail to be a right 



184 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

assortment of men and women for industrial organiza- 
tion. There may be too many of one kind and too few 
of another, and it is not possible freely to draw in from 
the outside world, and to give to the outside world, and 
still preserve communism. 

These are simply a few obvious difficulties in the way 
of earlier communism, which had reference perhaps as 
much to the advantages of associated consumption, as to 
the economies of production on a vast scale : and these dif- 
ficulties, with others which will occur on reflection, clearly 
render the earlier communism inadequate. This is con- 
ceded as freely by the modern socialist as by anyone. 
Consequently we find socialists in the United States is- 
suing a pamphlet aiming to discourage any movement in 
the direction of a communistic village ; and the Fabians of 
England steadily setting their faces against any separate 
settlements. In a lecture on the Progress of Collectivism, 
as reported in the Fabian News of February, 1894, Mr. 
Sidney Webb says of the Fabians, that from the begin- 
ning they discountenanced proposals to establish utopian 
communities, and have never seen reason to alter their 
opinion. Modern socialism does not preach a doctrine 
of separation, but aims to change the whole structure of 
modern society. 

A socialistic state, under the auspices of the Jesuits, 
was established in Paraguay in the seventeenth century, 
and lasted for a hundred years or more, when it fell to 
pieces, owing to foreign conquest. This failure has been 
adduced as an argument against modern socialism, but a 
little reflection will show that it has no bearing on the 
case ; and we can only wonder that this state survived so 
long, and was ultimately overthrown by a foreign power. 
The kind of socialism which was established in Paraguay 



ALLEGED OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM. 185 

was paternal in the extreme; it lacked the advantages 
of modern production, and would be altogether abhorrent 
to the modern socialist. Curiously enough, one writer 
adduces the remark of a traveller, who visited Paraguay 
when under the socialistic regime^ that he saw there 
many discontented faces, as a serious argument against 
socialism. One may walk down the street of any great 
American or English city and discover plenty of discon- 
tented faces ; but he would be regarded as a strange man 
who, on this account, would want to overthrow the exist- 
ing social order. 

The allegation is made that under socialism there would 
be no provision for doing the disagreeable work which is 
socially necessary. We have already seen, however, that 
there would be reason to anticipate that if socialism 
could be made to work at all, far more of the disa- 
greeable work than at present would be performed by 
machinery. Moreover, much of the work which is now 
considered unpleasant is so esteemed because of the asso- 
ciations which form no necessary part of it. Hoeing 
coi-n is not unpleasant work ; on the contrary, it is agree- 
able work when not continued too many hours a day, say 
not over eight or ten, and when hoeing corn gives one 
agreeable companionship. When an educated and cul- 
tured man, however, finds that hoeing corn brings him 
the constant and exclusive companionship of uneducated 
and degraded men like, for example, the ignorant negroes 
of the far South, it becomes most intensely disagreeable. 
It is the associations of work which, so far as nearly all 
work is concerned, render it agreeable or disagreeable, 
provided, of course, one is strong and well and is not 
overtaxed. Should there remain still some work posi- 
tively disagreeable, it would not seem, after all, unfair 



186 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

that this should be distributed to a certain extent among 
all the members of the community, rather than heaped 
upon a few wretched individuals, who thus have to bear 
disproportionate burdens. It does not seem fair that one 
class should be made wretched for the sake of the com- 
munity as a whole, unless it is absolutely necessary, in 
order that the work of civilization may go forward. It 
cannot be claimed, however, that there is any social 
necessity for this concentration of disagreeable work 
upon a few. 

All this reminds one of the argument against socialism 
so current in Germany, which is called by that tremen- 
dous name, ^'das allgemeine StiefelputzenmussenP This 
means simply that every one must black his own shoes. 
Will it, after all, interfere with the highest development 
of culture if each one should black his own shoes ? The 
scholar in Germany rarely, if ever, performs this service 
for himself ; but in America he ordinarily does it, and it 
would probably be hard to find an American scholar who 
would say that he found the performance of this task a 
serious obstacle in the way of the fullest unfolding of 
all his powers. We are reminded of the question which 
Abraham Lincoln put to the Englishman who told him 
that in England no gentleman blacked his own boots. 
'' Whose boots does he black then ? '' ^ 

Another current objection to socialism is that it will 
not know how to deal with the idle. We have already 
seen, however, that socialism alone proposes the complete 
abolition of the idle classes. So far as the idle poor are 
concerned, we do not hesitate in present society to send 
them to the penitentiary, or, in the South, to put them 

1 For some sensible remarks on this subject see ** Die soziale Frage 
eine sittliche Frage," by Prof. Theobald Ziegler, p. 177. 



ALLEGED OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM. 187 

in the chain gang when they become paupers and tramps. 
We do not hesitate to apply whatever physical force may 
be required to make a man work now, if he lacks the 
means of subsistence, and it cannot be necessary to 
apply greater compulsion under socialism. Socialists, 
however, hope that the desire of men to lead idle lives 
will disappear, or nearly so. The one who looks at this 
question With cold impartiality will hardly be inclined 
to share the enthusiastic hopes of the majority of social- 
ists in this respect ; but, at the same time, it is instructive 
to learn that in the communistic settlements idleness has 
been one of the least difficult factors with which their 
members have had to contend. 

These illustrations of fallacious arguments against 
socialism serve to throw light, it is hoped, upon the true 
nature of the problem with which we are confronted, 
and to clear the ground for those serious objections to 
socialism which seem to very many to be decisive against 
its proposals. 



188 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 



CHAPTER III. 

SOCIALISM TOO OPTIMISTIC AATITH RESPECT TO THE 

FUTURE, AND TOO PESSIMISTIC W'lTH 

RESPECT TO THE PRESENT. 

Before we consider special objections to socialism, we 
will direct our attention to those of the most general 
character. First of all, certain weaknesses in socialism 
as ordinarily presented will be noticed, which objections 
do not, of necessity, adhere to socialism in itself. 

If the question is asked, what is necessary to establish 
socialism, the answer cannot be difficult. It must be 
shown that socialism, while having its difficulties and its 
objectionable features, is, on the whole, preferable to the 
existing social order, both with respect to its character- 
istics when once introduced, and with respect to its 
promises for the future. It is conceivable, for example, 
that although socialism may be better than the present 
order when first introduced, it may not have in it the 
same potentiality of further improvement. This brings 
us to the first valid objection which may be urged against 
socialism, in its ordinary presentation at least. It is 
both too optimistic and too pessimistic. It is too opti- 
mistic with respect to the future, holding that conditions 
will be introduced which, on sober examination, seem 
incompatible with the existence of human beings upon 
an earth like ours. On the other hand, socialism is too 
pessimistic, as ordinarily presented, with respect to our 
present social order. The evils of our present system are 



SOCIALISM TOO OPTIMISTIC, 189 

vast enough, and every effort to remove them, or to in- 
crease the good in the world, deserves cordial approbation. 
But it may not by any means be affirmed that the present 
order is without its bright side. If there is a most 
wretched class, the submerged tenth, there is also a very 
large class whose needs are fairly well satisfied, and along 
many lines there has been decided improvement, which is 
still in progress. 

Socialism is too optimistic with respect to the pos- 
sibilities of wealth creation under socialism. Socialists 
describe a condition of things in which everyone shall 
enjoy all those comforts and conveniences which now 
fall to the lot alone of those whom we regard as wealthy. 
The possibility of living in a condition of what would 
now be called luxury is held out to the masses as an in- 
ducement to adopt socialism. The necessary limits to 
the production of wealth found in external nature and 
in the possibilities of social organization are overlooked. 
There is no difficulty, to be sure, in regard to the pro- 
duction of cotton or wheat. There is reason to suppose 
that it is possible to supply all human beings with all 
that they can need of certain staple articles, although it 
becomes apparent that this means an immense extension 
of production, when one reflects upon the millions of 
human beings whose elementary wants are unsatisfied.' 
There are articles of ordinary consumption which could 
not, without great difficulty, be so increased that all 
human beings, even in what are now the civilized parts of 
the world, could enjoy as much as they would like, or, 
let us say, equal the consumption of the wealthy at the 
present time. Meat might be mentioned as one of these 
articles. The production of meat requires an extensive 
use of natural resources, and with all the improvements 



190 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

in the means of communication, its retail price seems to 
rise rather than fall. Should the consumption of meat be 
very greatly increased it would be attended with more 
than proportionate increase in the cost, because, either 
it would be necessary to use more expensive land for 
raising cattle, or more remote regions would have to be 
exploited. 

The proportion of one's income used in the purchase 
of those staple articles of production which can be in- 
creased very greatly decreases as one's income increases, 
and it is only a small proportion of the income of the 
wealthy which is thus employed at the present time. If 
one examines into the essential conditions of the life 
of a family which is in marked degree what we call 
comfortable, not to say luxurious, it will be found that 
it implies the continuous exertions of several human 
beings, especially in the way of personal services. Per- 
sonal services are necessarily limited in amount, and 
invention cannot increase this amount, although it may, 
to some extent, lessen the need of these services. Man- 
ifestly, not e^ryone could live in a condition which 
would imply the personal services of some one else. This 
means a great deal, and to see how much it means, it is 
only necessary for those who are familiar with the vari- 
ous parts of the United States to reflect upon the condi- 
tions of life in portions of the country where personal 
services are scarce and high in price. A person of mod- 
erate means coming to the North, or to the far West, 
from the South, will say life is hard. It is one of the 
most common expressions used by housewives under 
such circumstances. When we examine into the condi- 
tions, what do we find it is that makes life hard for 
those who complain, except the scarcity of personal ser- 



SOCIALISM TOO OPTIMISTIC. 191 

vices and the difficulty of securing them ? Manifestly, 
under socialism, servants would be relatively few, or 
would practically disappear. This may have its bright 
side, but unquestionably it has also its dark side. It is 
hoped that household service may be better organized, 
and things now produced within the home, be produced 
outside the home. There is a tendency, even now, to 
carry production outside the home into the factory ; but 
this by no means obviates all the difficulties and ob- 
jections which would attend such a change. Frugal 
comfort for all, with large public expenditures, and op- 
portunities for common enjoyment in museums, art 
galleries, parks, etc., would seem to be the most for 
which we could hope, even if the plans of the socialists 
were capable of being reduced to practice. 

It is perhaps true that adherents of the existing order 
are, in a measure, responsible for illusions in regard to 
the possibilities of wealth creation. We hear it claimed 
that a single individual has added to the wealth of the 
country, by his own exertions, one hundred millions of 
dollars. If it were possible for any human being to add 
so much to the wealth of the country, or to that of the 
world at large, the wildest hopes of the socialists with 
respect to the future might not be ill-founded. When 
we examine, however, into the processes by which vast 
wealth is acquired, we find that we cannot admit the 
claim that it is possible for any human being to add one 
hundred millions to the store of existing wealth. When 
such a fortune has been acquired, it means simply that 
some one has been enabled to appropriate this large 
amount of wealth. He has established claims which 
have that value upon present and future production. 
His methods may have been legitimate and proper, but 



192 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

that does not alter the fact that the fortune is an un- 
earned one, so far as concerns the individual who enjoys 
it. The process of railway consolidation is responsible 
for vast fortunes; but this railway consolidation was 
something which lay in the nature of the enterprises 
themselves, and certain individuals were in a position to 
reap the advantages of the natural evolution of railways. 
The individuals who enjoy these fortunes could not have 
prevented the consolidation if they had desired to do so. 
No one need blame them nor find fault with them, as long 
as they employed proper methods. On the contrary, the 
blame must then rest upon society, because society made 
it possible for individuals to appropriate gains which 
should have gone to society as a whole. 

Socialists are too optimistic with respect to the possi- 
bilities of change in the near future, or rather let us say 
in a future so near that we need to concern ourselves 
with it. We here encounter difficulties in the way of 
socialism which are largely psychological in nature. 
Socialism implies a new economic world, with new 
habits of thought, and new motives. Whereas men 
have been accustomed to view the everyday work of life 
from one standpoint, they must learn naturally and spon- 
taneously to look upon it from a different standpoint, if 
socialism is to work well. This is not merely a question 
of improvement in human nature, but a question of those 
psychological habits which would enable men, under radi- 
cally different social institutions, to appreciate adequately 
the line of conduct calculated to promote their own 
interests. 

Men are deceived by the rapidity with which political 
changes have been effected, and with which changes in 
the modes of production have been brought about. Polit- 



SOCIALISM TOO OPTIMISTIC. 193 

ical forms do not touch in marked degree the every- 
day life of men. Constitutions come and go, but the 
ordinary farmer or artisan scarcely appreciates the dif- 
ference. Yet even political changes often require more 
time than we are apt to think. Has it not taken a hun- 
dred years to establish a republican form of government 
in France upon a firm basis, — if we grant that even 
now it has become permanent in France ? 

Men have to learn to feel themselves republicans. Re- 
publican government has to become a part of their habit- 
ual consciousness in order to make it secure. The changes 
in the modes of production have been far more far-reach- 
ing, but they have largely been forced upon men by con- 
ditions beyond individual control, and even then have 
not changed, except slowly and gradually, the most fun- 
damental institutions. They have been productive of no 
change which would correspond to the complete substitu- 
tion of public industry for private industry. 

Some one might hold that, slowly and gradually, as the 
result of evolution, partly spontaneous and partly socially 
controlled,^ we should, at the expiration of a long period, 
say three hundred years, come to a socialistic state. 
Such a person, however, would be merely a speculative 
socialist, and not a practical one. Ordinarily speaking, 
we can call only those socialists who hold that socialism 
is near enough so that we ought to shape our action prac- 
tically with reference to it. So far as the remote future 
is concerned, the wise man will be very slow to attempt 
any thing like prediction. We can see forces working in 

a certain direction at the present time, but we know that 

t 

1 The exact technical term would be socio-teleological, that is 
change self-consciously guided by society with reference to desired 
ends. 



194 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

society, in its development, does not move in a straight 
line. It seems at one time to move in one direction, and 
latter in an almost opposite direction ; and so it is fre- 
quently said that social progress is more like a spiral 
than a straight line. 

Socialism is too pessimistic with respect to the present, 
because it fails to appreciate adequately the secondary 
distribution of property brought about by what may be 
technically called the caritative principle in distribution. 
The caritative principle is the principle of fraternity, or 
benevolence. The distribution of property effected by 
this principle of benevolence is chiefly secondary distri- 
bution. After men have acquired property through the 
primary processes of production and distribution, they 
frequently distribute it according to quite different meth- 
ods. A man who enjoys an income of one hundred thou- 
sand dollars a year may use a large portion of this income 
to ameliorate the inequalities and injustices which result 
from the primary economic processes. He may, for ex- 
ample, educate a poor but promising young person, and 
give him every opportunity to develop all his talents ; 
and with another part of his surplus income he may 
relieve the necessities of the aged and infirm. 

It is easily possible to exaggerate what may be effected 
by the caritative principle in society, and the general 
tendency is to rely too much upon it. At the same time, 
it is a grievous error to overlook it altogether, or to regard 
it, as the socialists usually do, as entirely insignificant. 

We may similarly object to socialism, that socialists 
under-estimate the services rendered by the capitalist 
and the captain of industry in the present society. Our 
industrial leaders are those who give us our present in- 
dustrial organization, and their services are necessarily 



SOCIALISM TOO OPTIMISTIC. 195 

arduous, requiring the exercise of unusual powers. We 
are not now speaking about the drones who are living 
upon the past toil of themselves or their ancestors, but 
about those who are actually employed in industrial lead- 
ership. Such men frequently sacrifice themselves, and 
what is best in life, in their efforts to guide industrial 
society. They put at stake their wealth, and they plan 
ceaselessly to utilize the forces of production to the best 
advantage. Frequently they achieve remarkable success, 
resulting in a multiplication and cheapening of commod- 
ities. Their efforts often result in a better utilization of 
natural forces, and open up new sources of wealth. We 
must, on the one hand, not underrate, as the socialists are 
so much inclined to do, the inherent difficulties in indus- 
trial management ; and on the other, we make a mistake 
if we fail to remember the hesitation and timidity which 
is apt to attend collective action. Capitalists will fre- 
quently risk millions of dollars in an undertaking which 
is so uncertain that one would hesitate to recommend it 
to the representatives of the collectivity, whether these 
representatives be the legislators of the present state, or 
the administrators, so-called, of the socialistic state. The 
author is not disposed to dwell too much on this weakness 
in socialism. It is quite possible for society to secure 
better leaders than those now elected to serve it, and 
changed circumstances might develop a sufiiciently dar- 
ing public spirit.^ But those who advocate socialism 
should do so fully conscious of the services which capi- 
talists render in their personal efforts, and in the risks 
which they take, and also be well aware of the difficulties 
accompanying general social action. 

1 Public authority in New Zealand has been more adventurous 
than private persons in opening up the resources of the country by the 
extension of railway lines, and by other undertakings. 



196 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

Socialists are too pessimistic with respect to the pres- 
ent society, because they underestimate the possibilities 
of developing the social side of private property. Pri- 
vate property has two sides, the individual and the 
social; but the social side is dominant. Private prop- 
erty is, according to its necessary idea, maintained for 
social purposes. It exists for the sake of society, and 
this suggests great possibilities of development, which are 
still compatible with the existing industrial order. We 
may keep private property in the instruments of produc- 
tion in the main, and yet introduce serious modifications in 
the institution itself, to enable it better to subserve social 
purposes. At the same time, we can extend along certain 
lines public property, even while allowing private prop- 
erty to remain dominant. An adherent of the existing 
social order may thus take the position that things have 
become private property which, according to their nature, 
should be public property, and that private property in 
its own sphere includes rights which are no necessary 
part of it. It was the possibility of developing the social 
side of private property which led John Stuart Mill, in 
one part of his " Political Economy," to declare against 
socialism; for he maintained that we must first know 
what improvements are compatible with private property, 
before we decide to abandon the institution itself. He 
declared frankly, that had he to make his choice between 
society as it exists to-day and communism, then all the 
difficulties of communism, great and small, would be bui 
as dust in the balance. But he maintained that this 
dilemma was not forced upon us, because we had nevei 
yet given private property a fair trial. 



LI8SAT1SFACT10N UNDER SOCIALISM, 197 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DANGER OF THE DOMINATION OF A SINGLE IN- 

DUSTRIAIi PRINCZPIiE, AND OF THE INEVITABLE 

CONCENTRATION OF DISSATISFACTION 

UNDER SOCIALISM. 

We cannot expect the best results in civilization, un- 
less within it many different principles operate. The 
claim has been made, indeed, that the domination of a 
single social principle, as for example the military prin- 
ciple, has caused the downfall of older civilizations, and 
it has been shown by a thoughtful observer of American 
life, whose utterances are always fruitful in suggestion, 
that mercantilism has been the bane of American life 
heretofore.^ Mercantilism, as thus used, means the 
principle of private business. There can be no doubt 
whatever, that the domination of this principle has 
caused vast harm to the United States, and that it is 
even a source of grave danger to our institutions. The 
custom has been growing of looking at men and meas- 
ures from the commercial standpoint. Too often every- 
thing, including character itself, has been regarded as 
something which can be estimated in dollars and cents, 
and the idea that anyone can be actuated by any other 
than mercantile considerations has been greeted by a 
large class with scepticism and even mockery. The 
principle of private business has invaded government, and 

1 Ex-President Andrew D. White, in the address entitled *' The 
Message of the Niuteenth Century to the Twentieth." 



198 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

office itself has been considered not as a trust but as an 
article of merchandise. Political contests have been re- 
duced to a struggle for ^^ boodle;'^ and the suggestion 
that something higher should dominate practical politics 
has been scornfully rejected as what is called ^' Sunday- 
school politics/' while the saying that every man has 
his price finds believers on every hand. 

Socialism, however, proposes to go to an opposite ex- 
treme, instead of seeking the golden mean. Socialists 
want to abolish the principle of private business, to 
substitute for it the collective industrial principle, and 
to make that dominate our life to a greater extent than 
it is now controlled by mercantilism. While the evils 
might well be expected to be different from those we 
now experience, it is to be feared that they would by 
no means be less. The principle of private business has 
its own place, it would seem, in civilization. There are 
many persons well fitted to render service to their 
country in private business because they love bold and 
daring ventures, and individual initiative is indispens- 
able to the unfolding of their powers. These same men 
are frequently unfitted, by their very excellence in the 
field of private business, for public life, which oper- 
ates quite differently, requiring a careful elaboration of 
plans and a submission of these plans to boards or coun- 
cils, which hold men accountable for all that is done, 
as well as all that is left undone. 

Public life, on the other hand, has its charms for many, 
and requires special preparation if it is to yield its 
largest results. Many men are better qualified for pub- 
lic life than for private life, as we see from the fact 
that some have rendered distinguished service to their 
country in office, who have not succeeded in private in- 



DISSATISFACTION UNBER SOCtALISM, 199 

dustry. Mercantilism in the United States has not 
made adequate room and provision for those who would 
gladly give themselves the best possible preparation for 
usefulness in public office, and has thus deprived the 
country of great benefits which might have been re- 
ceived. But socialism, while providing amply for the 
employment of those adapted to public life, would not 
make provision for the large and numerous class best 
fitted for private industry. 

Far more serious than the objections to socialism 
which have already been mentioned is the concentration 
of dissatisfaction which would be inevitable under so- 
cialism. Socialism means the unification of production. 
But even if socialism worked well, there would still 
be a vast amount of dissatisfaction, more or less well- 
founded, with the commodities and services furnished to 
the masses of the community. At the present time the 
dissatisfaction with material conditions is immense, but 
it is diffused among a multitude of persons, and thus the 
burden is borne. We are dissatisfied with the milkman 
because he uses the pump too freely, but soon our dis- 
satisfaction is diverted into another channel by annoy- 
ances in the kitchen. The unsatisfactory service of the 
cook, however, is j)resently placed in the shade by ex- 
orbitant express charges, and these again are forgotten 
in the indignation which is experienced when we receive 
a gas-bill too high by one hundred per cent. Thus it 
goes throughout life ; and one reason why we bear with 
such extraordinary patience poor services and other 
abuses in the field of private industry, is because our 
dissatisfaction is diffused among so many, and no one 
person or group of persons has to bear the entire load of 
our indignation. How different it would be under social- 



200 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFOBM. 

ism becomes apparent when we reflect upon the present 
popular attitude with respect to government. Not only- 
do we not appreciate the excellences of government ser- 
vices as we would if they were rendered by private cor- 
porations, but we have only a fractional part of the 
patience with the weaknesses and mistakes of govern- 
ment which we have when we must endure the result of 
similar weaknesses and mistakes of private individuals 
or private corporations. A comparison of the services 
rendered by the post-office and the express companies is 
quite to the point. The post-office renders better service 
on the whole for far less money, and it takes much more 
trouble to accommodate the general public. The efforts 
and the success of the post-office in tracing addresses 
and in delivering letters and parcels to the one to whom 
they are sent are little short of marvellous. The author, 
when living in Baltimore, has frequently received mail 
packages sent by mistake to Boston, and when packages 
and letters have been sent to Baltimore it seemed to 
make no difference whatever how they were addressed, 
as they always reached him safely and quickly. Else* 
where he has had similar experience. Everyone who 
has had experience with the express companies knows 
that they make little effort to find one, and if they do 
not at once discover the address of the person to whom 
a package is sent, they frequently drop a postal card into 
the post-office with the same address as that given on 
the package, and the post-office has no difficulty in find- 
ing the person not discovered by the express company. 
The express companies have regular printed forms on 
postal cards for informing persons that it has not been 
possible to find them, and then these postal cards are 
addressed as the express parcels have been. It may not 



DISSATISFACTION UNDER SOCIALISM, 201 

be out of place to give one illustration. Some time since 
the author had occasion to send a parcel from Madison 
to Washington, but the parcel was misdirected to a 
wrong number of the street. The express company sent 
a postal stating that there was no such number and the 
parcel could not be delivered. The person to whom the 
parcel had been sent was notified by a postal card mis- 
directed just as the parcel had been, that the parcel was 
awaiting him at the express office, and the postal was 
delivered promptly. So far as speed is concerned, the 
author may say that for some five years he had occasion 
frequently to use both the post-office and the express 
companies, and he never knew an instance in which the 
post-office parcel did not reach its destination sooner 
than the express parcel, when both were sent to the same 
place at the same time.^ Others who have tried experi- 
ments of this kind, or who will reflect upon their expe- 
riences, will be able to substantiate what is here said, and 
yet the facts are far from being generally appreciated. 
It is supposed that a safety and celerity greater than 
the facts warrant are furnished by the express com- 
pany, and the responsibility for loss, which it is generally 
believed the express companies bear, is frequently ren- 
dered illusory by devices too numerous to be mentioned. 
Many services rendered by private corporations are 
such in quality that they would not be tolerated were 
they public services. Let the reader, when making a 
journey on a railway, imagine it operated by the govern- 

1 The manuscript of the present work serves as a good iUustration. 
At the request of the publishers it was sent by express to Boston, 
Mass. It was g^ven to the express agent in Madison, Wis., March 15, 
and was delivered in Boston five days later; namely, March 20. Had 
it been sent by mail at the same time, it would have been delivered 
March 17. 



202 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

ment, and ask himself what objections would be made 
to the service, provided its quality should not change at 
all. When the author made a trip from Baltimore, Md., 
to Dunkirk, N.Y., via Eochester and Buffalo, some time 
since, it occurred to him that it would not be an altogether 
bad idea, imitating Mr. Bellamy, to dream that our rail- 
ways had passed under government ownership, and were 
controlled by the government; and then to describe the 
trip as it actually occurred, pointing out the annoyances 
and inconveniences suffered, and to show how such an- 
noyances and inconveniences would be impossible with a 
system of free private industry, with its natural desire to 
please. The line of argument used by so-called ortho- 
dox political economists of the present time with regard 
to private enterprise could be followed. Attention would 
first be called to the fact that the upper berth in the 
sleeping-car was lowered, although it was unoccupied; 
then to the fact that the oil lamps smoked and gave a 
feeble light, although railways elsewhere had adopted 
electric lighting or gas, even in the second-class passen- 
ger coaches ; and further, to the fact, that such a little 
convenience as a hood to cover the lamps, and to prevent 
their shining into the eyes of some of the occupants of 
the upper berths, had not been adopted. It could be 
shown conclusively that all these abuses could only exist 
under a system of government ownership. Attention 
would then be called to the fact that passengers were 
obliged to wait three-quarters of an hour in Eochester, 
and five or six hours in Buffalo, where a change was made 
from the New York Central to the Lake Shore Eailway, 
the Lake Shore train leaving according to schedule time, 
five minutes before the New York Central train arrived. 
It could be proved beyond all doubt that under a private 



DISSATISFACTION UNDER SOCIALISM. 203 

system such gross neglect of the convenience of the 
travelling public could not possibly take place. After 
a description of the trip, as a dream of experiences under 
government ownership, the dreamer would wake up and 
find that it had all actually taken place under private 
ownership. Then the query would be, ^^ How could it 
happen ? '^ 

Had the classical economist visited Baltimore a few 
years ago, under the impression that the street-car lines 
were owned and operated by the city, it is easy to 
imagine what he would have said. The accommoda- 
tions for the public, at certain times of the day, were 
entirely inadequate, and travel was slow, almost be3^ond 
comparison. Our economist, under the hypothesis men- 
tioned, would have repeated for us the old phrase : " The 
government stroke is slow," and the people would have 
been invited to try active, alert private enterprise. This 
same person visiting the street in Baltimore called the 
York Eoad, would have found it as disgusting a city 
street, perhaps, as could be found in any city which 
could with reason boast of a considerable degree of 
wealth and culture. Looking at the muddy, ill-kept 
street, poorly paved, full of depressions filled with water, 
and turning his eyes to the street-car tracks, elevated 
several inches above the surface, — an unsightly incon- 
venience, — and observing the general absence of side- 
walks, and the poor quality of the walks where they did 
exist, he would have said : ^^ This is conclusive against 
municipal enterprise." Careful inquiry would have re- 
vealed the fact, however, that all which he beheld was, 
like the street-car lines, private enterprise; for the York 
Road was a toll-road, the unsightly and inconvenient 
car tracks were maintained by a private corporation, 



204 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFORM, 

and the sidewalks, where they existed, were purely in- 
dividual enterprises. 

These illustrations might be continued indefinitely. 
It has been necessary to give such illustrations at some 
length, because they are of great importance in illustrat- 
ing the fact that any careful observer will notice that we 
are more impatient with government enterprise than with 
private industry. We are dealing with psychological 
phenomena. If we had collective management of indus- 
try, the collectivity, or those administering it, would be 
held responsible for whatever did not suit us ; and the 
psychological result of this concentration of dissatisfac- 
tion would be a revolutionary state of mind. 

The outcome of socialism, then, it is to be apprehended, 
would be such an amount of dissatisfaction that one of 
two things would happen ; either socialism would result 
in a series of revolutions, reducing countries like Eng- 
land and the United States to the condition of the South 
American republics, and rendering progress impossible ; 
or the dissatisfaction would cause a complete overthrow 
of socialism, and a return to the discredited social order. 

It may be said, in reply, that the higher standard 
which would be set for government enterprises argues a 
strength in socialism. This is only true providing that 
we have a more intelligent and philosophical population 
than any population which can anywhere be found at 
present. It is, however, an argument for the extension 
of government industry along certain well defined lines, 
as fast as public opinion can be educated in such manner 
as to appreciate and to support public enterprise. 

Closely connected with the weakness of socialism, 
which has just been discussed, is the objection that the 
selfishness of designing and unscrupulous men interposes 



DISSATISFACTION UNDER SOCIALISM. 205 

obstacles in the way of progress in the direction of social- 
ism. Such men, even now, utilize unwarranted dissatis- 
faction with government for their own advantage. They 
exaggerate any weaknesses or shortcomings of govern- 
ment, and take pains to fan the flames of discontent, if 
thereby they can get into their possession the business 
which has heretofore been a public service. The gas- 
works of Philadelphia furnish an illustration. From 
time to time men have formed combinations for the pur- 
pose of gaining control of these gas-works, in order that 
they might reap the enormous returns which they would 
yield to private parties under private management. 
When the gas in Philadelphia has been poor, the organs 
of this ring have talked about it, and have told the 
people that no other city in the country had such 
poor gas, whereas one who had travelled extensively at 
all could see that this was an entirely false statement. 
Every defect in municipal management was exaggerated, 
every merit was minimized.^ [N'ot only was the press of 
the city, at least with few exceptions, operated in behalf 
of this scheme, but the municipal council was at one time 
very nearly captured. It required a great effort on the 
part of the best elements in the city to save to the city 
this valuable property. Since that time, it is hoped that 
the public in Philadelphia has been so enlightened, that a 
further attempt of private parties to secure the gas-works 
would be unsuccessful. But this illustration shows how 
slow and difficult progress must be in the direction of the 
socialization of industry. 

1 It is even claimed that those who wanted to purchase the gas- 
works used their influence in the council to defeat appropriations 
needed for the improvement and extension of the gas-plant, thus 
doing what they could to make the service poor. 



206 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 



CHAPTER Y. 
SOCIALISM A MENACE TO IiIBERTY. 

The danger to liberty, which it is urged socialism 
would carry with it, is usually mentioned as the chief 
objection to the proposals of the socialists. The line of 
argument adopted by those who claim that socialism 
would be dangerous to liberty is a familiar one, and need 
not detain us long. We may say that at present there 
are two spheres of occupation, the public and the pri- 
vate, and that each offers an escape from the other. He 
who feels that he is restrained or oppressed in the public 
service may seek relief in private employment, or he may 
endeavor to establish a business of his own. On the 
other hand, those who are oppressed in private employ- 
ment often find a refuge and a larger freedom in the 
public service. There would, under socialism, be only 
one considerable sphere of employment, and there is 
reason to fear that the inability to escape from the public 
sphere would compel the submission to onerous and 
tyrannical conditions, imposed by the administrative 
heads of the business in which one might be engaged. 
But even this is not all, because it is claimed that pri- 
vate employment, on account of the multiplicity of em- 
ployers, affords greater protection against oppression 
than does public service ; consequently, that the sphere 
of occupation offering the chief guaranties would be re- 
duced to insignificant dimensions. We are admonished, 
furthermore^ that parties must always exist. Differences 



SOCIALISM A MENACE TO LIBERTY. 207 

of policy, or personal quarrels, giving rise to political 
dissensions, would exist under socialism as well as in a 
competitive society. Would not the dominant party 
punish opponents ? Naturally, it would be impossible 
to dismiss one from the public service, but one could be 
oppressed otherwise. It is quite possible to worry and 
annoy an obnoxious employee, and to favor one whom 
it is desired to favor, in a thousand and one ways which 
can be felt, but not formulated and defined in such man- 
ner that they can be made the subject of legal proof and 
formal complaint. 

The socialists, however, do not lack for a rejoinder to 
these current objections, although their reply may not be 
regarded as a sufficient answer. We must, first of all, 
notice that socialists have a somewhat different concep- 
tion of liberty from that which usually obtains. They 
have their minds fixed upon economic liberty, rather 
than political liberty. They desire that every man shall 
have a voice in the control of industry, and not be sub- 
jected to rules framed by others. But this is not all. 
They perceive that the chief restrictions upon freedom 
of movement at the present time are economic in nature, 
and in this they are quite correct. Any one who will 
reflect upon the things which he desires to do, and upon 
those restrictions which keep him from acting in ac- 
cordance with his desires, will soon discover that the 
restrictions upon his movements rarely proceed from 
government, but generally have their origin in lack of 
resources. A poor man wishes to spend the winter in 
Egypt because he has consumption. No statute stands 
in the way, and yet he is as unable to go as he would be 
if prohibited by ten thousand legislative enactments. 
But this is not all. Kestrictions proceed from lack of 



208 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

economic resources, and compulsion is connected with 
our economic necessities. We see men in society coming 
and going as bidden by others. A few men, compara- 
tively, say to thousands and tens of thousands " go/^ and 
they go ; '' come/' and they come. We can witness this 
in any factory. We have simply to step out of our 
houses into the streets to find the many obeying the 
commands of the few. Why do they do so ? Are they 
compelled to do so by statute law ? Only in rare cases. 
Where, then, is the seat of authority ? It is found in 
private property, which, according to its very definition, 
carries with it the right to exercise control over other 
men with respect to the objects of private property. 
Consequently, we hear the socialists using the expres- 
sion, " wage-slave,'' — a slavery which they maintain 
arises out of the nature of the present society. We must 
have authority if we are to have industrial organization. 
But what shall be the seat of authority ? This brings 
us at once face to face with one of the critical points 
in socialism. Will authority be more wisely exercised 
when it finds its seat in government than when it finds 
its seat in private property ? Or is it perchance a mixed 
system which affords the greatest guaranties of full 
and free opportunity for the development of all our 
faculties ? 

The socialists have yet something else to urge. They 
tell us that the ideal freedom in industrial life, which 
many have sought, is that which belongs to an earlier 
stage of economic development; namely, the stage of 
small industries. When production is carried on on a 
large scale, men must act together. This cannot be 
otherwise. But socialism proposes that the workers 
owning the tools of industry shall themselves partici- 



SOCIALISM A MENACE TO LIBERTY. 209 

pate in the enactment of the regulations which they must 
obey. They also evidently regard the material sphere 
of existence as merely a means to an end ; and they look 
to the time, free from toil, which they expect socialism 
will give them, and the resources which they will then 
enjoy, for the best opportunities of free development and 
free movement. The main thing with them seems to be 
liberty outside the economic sphere ; and now they claim 
they do not enjoy this. The position of the socialists 
in this respect will, perhaps, be made clearer by two 
quotations taken from writers who very well describe 
the socialistic position, although, possibly, they are not 
themselves avowed socialists. 

*'What is Hberty with long hours and low wages? Is it 
liberty ? Can liberty exist with long hours and low wages ? 
What rubbish it is to say that we enjoy liberty, when we work 
for a bare subsistence, and toil only to keep body and soul 
together; and at that, only succeed in doing so for a short 
time. Look at the condition of the masses. What is life or 
liberty to the majority of them ? Life is a burden, and liberty 
a mere mockery. For the exploiters, it is different; they enjoy 
life and liberty through big profits." ^ 

*'The Declaration of Independence yesterday meant self-gov- 
ernment; to-day it means self-employment, which is but another 
name for self-government. . . . Not as an exception, but univer- 
sally, labor is doing what it does not want to do, and not getting 
what it wants or what it needs. Laborers want to work eight hours 
a day; they must work ten, fourteen, eighteen. Crying to their 
employers, to congress, to legislatures to be rescued, they go down 
under the murderous couplers and wheels of the railroads faster 
than if they were in active service in war, marching out of one 
battle into another. They want to send their children to school; 
they must send them to the factory. They want their wives to 

1 From the Patersou Labor Standard j quoted by the Carpenter for 
November, 1893. 



210 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

keep house for them ; hut they, too, must throw some shuttle or 
guide some wheel. They must work when they are sick; they 
must stop work at another's will; they must work life out to keep 
life in. The people have to ask for work, and then do not get it. 
They have to take less than a fair share of the product; they 
have to risk life, limb, or health — their own, their wives', their 
children's — for others' selfishness or whim. They continue, for 
fear, to lead lives that force them to do to others the cheapening 
and wrongs of which they complain when done to them." i 

There are, moreover, not wanting those who claim that 
the public service, even to-day, is that in which there is 
found the greater liberty. The workingmen of Belgium, 
we are told, prefer to work in the government railway 
shops rather than in those belonging to private railway 
corporations ; and in Germany, we do not see that railway 
employees have suffered any additional restrictions upon 
their liberty since the railways passed under public own- 
ership and management. The interferences of private 
corporations, both with their employees and with others 
who are obnoxious to them, — in short, their general 
tryanny and oppression, — are further cited. In all fair- 
ness, it should also not be forgotten that those univer- 
sities which taught the world the value of freedom in 
learning and in imparting instruction are the German 
state universities, which are, perhaps, those to-day offer- 
ing greater guaranties to professors against interferences 
with their liberty than do any other universities ; and 
they are undoubtedly far ahead, in this respect, of the 
private foundations in the United States. The imper- 
sonal nature of the state itself seems to afford a certain 
protection. The state does not follow one up relentlessly 

1 From " The Safety of the Future lies in Organized Labor," an 
address by H. D. Lloyd, before tbe Thirteenth Annual Convention 
of the American Federation of Labor. 



SOCIALISM A MENACE TO LIBERTY, 211 

and persecute one continuously, as private persons some- 
times do. The state has a poor memory for offences 
against itself. It is not entirely insignificant that the 
presidency of one of the most important State univer- 
sities in the United States was recently offered to a 
scholar who had attacked State universities very strongly 
and made, perhaps, as able an argument as one could 
against their very right to exist. 

There is still a further argument in favor of the 
position of the socialists, although the socialists them- 
selves have frequently overlooked it. A recent advocate 
of socialism admits that, under socialism, there would be 
only one employer. But he was not by any means called 
upon to make this admission. We have, in the United 
States, some forty-four commonwealths and many local 
political units, in addition to the national government. 
While these local political units would, under socialism, 
have to act, in the main, according to some common 
principles, it is not by any means necessary that they 
should all have one administration. There is no reason 
why the various units, the nation, the State, and the city, 
or other local political unit, should not be relatively as 
free in their administrations as to-day. At the present 
time, one who is oppressed or wronged in the national civil 
service may frequently find employment in the service 
of a commonwealth or of a city. It will happen at times 
that one party will be in power in the nation, another in 
the State, and a third in the city ; and this cannot fail 
to offer a measure of protection. German professors, in 
earlier times, who were oppressed in a university in one 
German state, frequently found protection and opportu- 
nities in a university in another state. And why a mul- 
tiplicity of states should not still afford a measure of 



212 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

protection under socialism, it is hard to conceive. It is 
altogether probable that the federal form of government 
is, on this account, as well as on account of the facilities 
which it affords for experimentation, that one which is 
most favorable to socialism. There appears to be no 
reason why, under socialism, we in the United States 
should be obliged to abandon any one of our political 
subdivisions ; and it would be a grievous mistake from 
the socialistic standpoint to denounce the American com- 
monwealth. While some different distribution of powers 
would be necessitated, it is not clear that the State and 
the local political unit would not occupy relatively quite 
as important positions as they do to-day. 

The position of the socialists, then, is a far stronger 
one than is ordinarily supposed, and yet it does not 
appear to the author of the present work entirely satis- 
factory. He cannot forget that the world's history is a 
warning against unchecked and unfettered power. It is 
true that there would be different political units, afford- 
ing far better protection than is generally supposed ; but 
even when this is acknowledged, it must not be forgotten 
what a tremendous power a political faction would have, 
once it gained control of even a large part of the country. 
There must be at least some government ; and to talk 
about " administration of things," in the place of ^^ gov- 
ernment of persons," does not do away with this necessity. 
Even if the functions of government should be reduced 
to the lowest terms compatible with socialism, those in 
whose hands were centred political and economic control 
would have tremendous power, however they might be 
selected or appointed. Nor can we forget the possibilities 
of combinations between different parties for certain pur- 
poses. It would, under socialism, be quite possible for 



SOCIALISM A MENACE TO LIBERTY. 213 

two or three parties to act together, as sometimes tliey 
do now. The frequent assertion that the Democratic and 
Republican parties have acted together in New York City 
to control the civil service, seems to be well founded; 
and it is quite conceivable that two or three parties 
might act together to promote the interests favorable to 
a few leaders, and to keep down, if not persecute, obnox- 
ious persons. We have a still better illustration than 
that afforded by a combination of political parties in a 
city like New York to control the civil service. The 
Christian Church and secular governments, in the early 
centuries of our era, existed as two separate powers. 
Their spheres seemed to be so entirely different that a 
person might have supposed that one would afford ample 
protection against the excesses and abuses of the 
other ; but such was not the case, for now the one and 
now the other was in the ascendency, and the one in 
power used the other for purposes of cruel wrong and 
oppressive tyranny. We must finally bear in mind the 
most important fact, that restrictions need not necessa- 
rily proceed from the base, but that they can also pro- 
ceed from the conscientious, and that those restrictions 
upon desirable liberty which find their foundation in 
conscience, even if it is a perverted conscience, are most 
dangerous. Those guilty of oppression in the Christian 
Church were often men who acted conscientiously. They 
did that which they believed to be right. Let us suppose 
that in any country the prohibitionists should gain the 
ascendency. The fact that they are such conscientious 
people would compel them to use every means in their 
power to prevent the expression of opinions which they 
might regard as most dangerous. They could hardly 
prevent the use of the printing-press, but tliey might 



214 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 

here and there interfere with the right of free and open 
speech ; and, in control of the central government, they 
might interfere with the circulation of literature to them 
obnoxious. The reader may say, " But I think this is an 
excellent argument in favor of socialism, because prohi- 
bition is altogether a desirable thing." But, altogether 
apart from the fact that very many will not agree with 
him, he should bear in mind that what would be possible 
with reference to prohibition, would be possible with 
reference to the free expression and circulation of views 
on other topics. 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PRODUCTION. 215 



CHAPTER YI. 

OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF 
PRODUCTION. 

Socialism means a unification of industry. It is 
based upon the hypothesis that it is possible to organize 
every branch of industry as a unit. It is, indeed, main- 
tained by adherents of the purely evolutionary theory 
of socialism, that unification or monopoly in every branch 
of industry is an inevitable outcome of industrial devel- 
opment. If this is so, we would have only to choose 
between private and public monopoly-, and this would 
mean that socialism was not merely possible, but inevi- 
table, because there could be no hesitation in regard to 
our choice if we were obliged to choose between the 
irresponsible domination of private trusts, and socialism, 
for the latter signifies equally centralized production, but 
production under the control of representatives respon- 
sible to the people. 

We are again brought face to face with one of the most 
difficult and critical question in the discussion of social- 
ism. We see the work of combination and consolidation 
going on about us. What will be the outcome ? We 
must not shut our eyes to the fact, and we must admit 
frankly, that universal private monopoly would only mean 
the final substitution of public for private control ; in 
other words, again, socialism. When we examine the vari- 
ous industries carefully, we find that it is necessary to 
classify them, for it is by no means inevitable that the 



216 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

same law of development holds for all. The alleged ten- 
dency to monopoly is frankly admitted with reference to 
a whole class of businesses, which we call natural monopo- 
lies. We will return to the discussion of these later ; 
but now attention is called to the fact that they include 
enterprises like railways, highways, telegraphs, harbors, 
street-car lines, electric-lighting plants, gas-works, water- 
works, etc. They also include the exploitation of natural 
resources so limited in extent that a combination of men 
can acquire the entire supply. Possibly anthracite coal 
and petroleum will illustrate this class; perhaps, also, 
natural gas should be included. As we have admitted the 
principle of monopoly with respect to these pursuits, we 
have also admitted that the socialistic plan of production 
is possible for them. We also observe that collective 
ownership of all property of the kind mentioned, and the 
collective management of businesses connected with this 
property, are possible. 

But we witness the existence of trusts outside of this 
field, especially in manufacturing, and the claim is 
made that the tendency of manufactures is inevitably 
towards monopoly. We should always bear in mind, 
however, the contrast between production on a large 
scale and monopoly. Production on a very large scale 
may exist together with the sharpest competition. The 
question is not whether production will be carried on 
on a large scale, and whether such production is inevi- 
table, but whether it is possible to organize each promi- 
nent branch of manufactures as a single whole. Can 
every main line of manufacturing industry be brought 
under unified control ? is the same question put in a 
different form. Socialism afiirms that this is possible, 
and some socialists, as we have seen, affirm not only 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PRODUCTION, 217 

that it is possible, but that it is inevitable. They assert 
that every business is a natural monopoly, and that the 
expression itself, ^^ natural monopoly," is as much out of 
place as would be the expression "natural adults,'' with 
reference to human beings. Every human being becomes 
in time an adult, and so, they say, every business be- 
comes in time a monopoly. Proof is sought in a long 
list of trusts and combinations which have been more 
or less successful. When we look into this list of trusts 
in manufactures, however, we quickly ascertain that 
few of them have achieved anything like complete mo- 
nopoly ; and if we examine the list of unsuccessful at- 
tempts to form trusts, we shall discover that this is 
longer than the list of partially successful trusts. What 
we ascertain in reality is a demonstration of the advan- 
tages of production on a large scale, and a few attempts 
to secure a monopoly which have been partially success- 
ful, and a far larger number of cases of failure to estab- 
lish monopoly in manufacturing industries. So far as 
any historical inductive proof is concerned, we must say 
that it is, as yet, lacking. The careful thinker will at 
least demand time for further observation. He will tell 
us to wait and see what tendencies are revealed by sub- 
sequent industrial development. If we turn to deduc- 
tive proof, however, no convincing arguments have been 
advanced to support the hypothesis, either that unifica- 
tion of manufactures is, generally speaking, inevitable, 
or even possible. We must not overlook the immense 
difficulty of a management so watchful, so alert, so full 
of resources, so fruitful in initiative and enterprise, that 
it can permanently secure better results than a number 
of smaller and competing manufacturers. We may say, 
furthermore, that the tendencies to form monopolies 



218 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

in manufactures can sometimes be explained by a tariff 
policy favorable to combinations, or by special favors 
received at the hands of those conducting railways 
and other natural monopolies, whose services are in- 
dispensable. 

Naturally, it would carry us too far, and require too 
much space, to discuss this question exhaustively. We 
can claim, however, safely, that the burden of proof rests 
upon the advocates of the theory of monopoly, and that 
they have not yet produced the proof, so far as manufac- 
tures are concerned. Even if certain great lines of man- 
ufacturing should be conducted in accordance with the 
principles of socialism, there would still remain a large 
number of manufacturers producing on a comparatively 
small scale, chiefly for local needs, whose productive open 
rations could not well be unified. 

Foreign commerce is of less importance, but yet of vast 
significance, and it is not easy to see how this could be 
carried on under socialism. A chief difficulty would be 
the adjustment of values, and the determination of the ex- 
tent to which international exchanges should be effected. 
In the absence of a common organization, including the 
nations making the exchanges, it would seem necessary 
to fix values and regulate exchanges in accordance with 
existing methods ; and yet, the basis of existing methods 
in the present order would be wanting. Then there would 
be the further danger that a nation still capitalistic would, 
through foreign commerce, impede, if not upset, the ar- 
rangements of the socialistic state. 

But, even should the position of the socialists be proved 
with respect to manufactures and foreign commerce, it 
would further be necessary to prove it with respect to 
agriculture. Socialism means that socialistic production 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PRODUCTION, 219 

and distribution is to dominate our economic life, and 
should every other pursuit be conducted according to 
the principles of socialism, and agriculture be left out, we 
should have something very different from socialism, be- 
cause a large proportion, and, in many countries, more 
than half the population, would not be included within 
tlie socialistic organization. It can safely be asserted 
that no plan which is even plausible has been adduced 
for the organization of agriculture according to the de- 
mands of socialism. The tendency to production, even 
on an increasingly large scale, is so uncertain that it 
does not seem to have received clear historical and 
statistical proof. An examination of the results of his- 
torical and statistical inquiry leaves us in doubt. The 
German socialists rely greatly upon more or less correct 
reports of farming on a large scale which they receive 
from the United States. They attribute the effective- 
ness of American agriculture in competition, to the use 
of improved machinery, and to the introduction of 
capitalistic methods in American farming. They dwell 
largely upon the stories told of the so-called bonanza 
farms. The careful observer in America, however, sees 
many different tendencies at work. While in parts of the 
country, especially where a few great staples dominate, 
agricultural production is in some instances conducted 
on a very large scale, elsewhere the large farms are 
divided and subdivided : and practical farmers frequently 
claim that he who would attain the best results must be 
careful not to attempt farming on too large a scale. 
Every one who has had experience of farming in the 
United States knows that many have found it decidedly 
to their advantage to sell a part of their land, and to 
restrict the scale of their operations. At one time, in- 



220 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

deed, the feeling in favor of farming on a small scale 
found expression in the watch-word, '^ Ten acres enough ! '' 
Generally speaking, when, in any part of the country, we 
find farmers passing over from extensive to intensive 
agriculture, the tendency seems to be to break up the 
large farms into smaller farms. An illustration which 
has fallen under the observation of the author is that of 
grape culture in western ISTew York. This grape culture 
took the place of general farming, and especially the pro- 
duction of milk, butter, and cheese, and resulted in a 
great increase in the number of holdings. Many parts 
of the country are so varied in the quality of the soil 
and in situation that production must be carried on on a 
small scale to secure the best results, because the farmer 
must know every acre of his land accurately. One field 
of five acres will be especially well adapted to barley ; 
another field of twenty acres is an excellent meadow; 
possibly a tract of land including thirty acres is best 
adapted for pasturage ; while a field of five acres at the 
opposite extremity of the farm, which alone of all the 
farm has a gravelly soil, is best adapted to small fruits. 
Facts like these are overlooked by those writers, especially 
foreign writers, who appear to imagine that the whole of 
the United States resembles certain portions of the North- 
west, where land is found with soil evidently uniform in 
its situation and qualities, and where the production of 
one or two staple articles, by extensive agriculture, is 
advantageous. 

Now, if all this is admitted, — and it certainly can- 
not be maintained that the opposite has been proved, 
— the socialistic position is untenable with respect to 
agriculture. Socialists themselves acknowledge that 
private ownership of the soil is required for the pursuit 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PRODUCTION. 221 

of agriculture on a small scale. ^ The unification of agri- 
culture as a pursuit requires not only careful knowledge 
of all the land which is under one management, but it 
implies a unified organization of labor. There must be 
some central administrative authority, which can have 
supervision over all the workers, assigning to each one 
his task, and able to see that he performs it faithfully. 
Production on a large scale, under a single management, 
whether this be public or private, implies something like 
a military organization. We readily see how this can 
be applied to railways and like pursuits, and to many 
branches of manufacturing, but it is not clear that it is 
applicable to agriculture. On the contrary, the difficul- 
ties in the way of such an organization of agricultural 
workers seem to be insurmountable. The successful 
farmer keeps a constant watch over all his force ; they 
are under his eyes continually, and the geographical ex- 
tent of agricultural operations limits the possibilities of 
unified management. 

There is, furthermore, reason to fear that socialism does 
not supply adequate motives for economic activity to 
men so imperfectly developed as those with whom we 
must deal. Competition is one of the chief motives, 
although not the only motive, keeping in operation the 
wheels of industry at the present time. Competition, in 
the large sense, means the struggle of individual inter- 
ests on the basis of the existing social order, which in- 
cludes, as its fundamental features, private property, 

1 This view is expressed by Kautsky in his ** Erfurter Programm,** 
and is characteristic of a purely evolutionary socialism. A Fabian 
socialist raises the question whether we could not have public owner- 
ship of land, with private management. Possibly; yet this would 
give us something quite different from pure socialism. 



222 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

freedom of person, free contract, and vested interests. 
Competition means the freedom of an individual acting 
upon the basis of the existing order, and otherwise within 
certain legally established limits, to care for his own in. 
terests in economic affairs, — to secure the highest price 
obtainable for the goods and services which he desires to 
dispose of, and, on the other hand, to procure goods and 
services at the lowest prices which he can induce any one 
to accept. Free competition means rivalry and conflict, 
because manifestly when several persons are seeking the 
same thing not all can get it. It signifies the attempt of 
different persons to render the same service or to sell the 
same kind of commodities to a given person. If one is 
accepted, the others must be rejected. 

Competition has been called brutal, and it is so in 
many respects. It crushes human beings by the thou- 
sand, and continually throws out of the industrial field 
an immense amount of human rubbish, which is unable 
to maintain itself in the competitive world. We may 
take the case of manufacturers competing with one 
another. Each one tries to sell his products, and often 
to exclude others from the market. Other things being 
equal, the larger the sales the larger the gains of the 
manufacturer. But when several are trying to sell 
goods to the same person, the one who offers the goods 
at the lowest price will be the successful person under 
the system of free competition. The question, then, 
which confronts the manufacturer is this : How to pro- 
duce goods at the lowest price, if possible at a lower 
price than others, and in vast quantities ? As the cost of 
labor is a principal item in the entire cost of the product, 
the first thing which suggests itself is to reduce wages, 
then to extend the length of the working day, which 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PRODUCTION. 223 

means procuring a greater amount of labor for the same 
pay, then to drive labor more remorselessly, and then to 
replace the labor of grown men by the labor of women 
and children, who ought not to work away from home at 
all. These instances might be multiplied indefinitely, 
and socialists have portrayed them vividly, and deserve 
praise for forcing them upon our attention. 

Another class of evils connected with this rivalry in 
buying and selling comprises those which find expression 
in poor quality of workmanship, in the use of inferior 
materials, in the adulteration of products, all designed 
to deceive the ultimate purchaser, and make him think 
that he is getting something different from that which is 
really offered him. It is not possible, then, to entertain 
the exaggerated claims often put forward in behalf of 
competition. The modern competitive system has not 
existed long, but it has produced much evil. It is not 
by any means the exclusive force which has brought 
about the present civilization, and to claim that it has 
given the modern wage-earner a more desirable material 
existence than that enjoyed in earlier ages by kings and 
nobles is an absurdity which it is only possible for those 
to maintain who entirely fail to appreciate the essential 
elements in comfortable living on the material side. 

It must still further be admitted that progress fre- 
quently lies in the suppression of competition, which is 
the contest for material gain, and the substitution there- 
for of emulation, which may be regarded as the struggle 
for approbation. Our law and medical schools, and edu- 
cational institutions generally, have improved precisely 
in proportion as they have outgrown the competitive 
principle. Those medical schools which are still con- 
ducted as private institutions designed to secure the 



224 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

highest pecuniary returns to their managers, are inferior 
institutions, which bring disgrace upon the medical pro- 
fession in the United States. We call their condition 
one of degradation. That university which is conducted 
on the principles of commercial competition is a poor 
affair indeed. It is in particular unfortunate that the 
salary of a professor should have any connection with 
the success of the institution which employs him, if 
" success '' is used m a competitive sense. As the supe- 
rior schools of the country, however, have improved, a 
strong spirit of emulation has been increasingly substi- 
tuted for the competitive principle. Hospitals conducted 
according to mercantile principles are viewed with suspi- 
cion ; and if it is known that a hospital in any part of the 
country is in no sense dependent upon its earnings, and 
that the physicians care little about these, that hospital 
unfailingly inspires confidence. The same holds in still 
higher degree with respect to asylums for the insane. 
Public management has sins enough to answer for ^ but 
it would be hard for public management at its worst to 
duplicate the abuses and atrocities connected with the 
care of the insane in England, when it was left to private 
competitive industry.^ Literature is mean and contemp- 
tible when it falls under the domination of competition ; 
and architecture has achieved its grandest triumphs when 
competition has been weak in society. 

On the other hand, it should be acknowledged freely 
that competition has led to numberless inventions and 
improvements in the technical processes of production, 
and that it has played a very large part in the material 
progress of the present century. Oppression and degra- 

1 Cf. the description given in Hodder*s " Life and Works of the 
Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury." 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PRODUCTION. 225 

dation of labor are not the only means to bring about a 
reduction in the expenses of production. Improvements 
which enable the producer to accomplish a given result, 
with the expenditure of a smaller amount of labor and 
capital than was previously required, have been frequent, 
and these improvements signify social as well as indi- 
vidual gain. Now and again it happens that those who 
attain a brilliant success in industry, even under the 
pressure of sharp industrial competition, have treated 
their industrial subordinates well, and have succeeded 
because they deserved success, having contributed largely 
to material progress. 

Competition likewise affords a stimulus which human 
nature nfeeds, because , competition rewards men for 
achievement. Competition keeps us alert and active, 
because we know that we shall be punished by the loss 
of our industrial position, whatever that may be, if we 
let others get ahead of us in the race for the material 
good things of life. Undoubtedly, this struggle to sur- 
pass others is not ethically the highest sort of motive ; 
but every one must personally feel the need of some kind 
of discipline and control, a spur to the putting forth of 
his best powers. Competition also may be looked at not 
merely as an attempt to get ahead of somebody else, but 
as an endeavor to render the highest social service for 
the smallest return. This is the best aspect of competi- 
tion, and it must not be overlooked. A and B both want 
to sell to C a commodity. If A offers his commodity 
at a lower price than B is willing to take, he has rendered 
a greater service to C for a given return. 

Competition has been supplanted recently in large por- 
tions of the industrial field by combination and partial 
or complete monopoly ; and many of the evils from 



226 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL nEFOTlM, 

which we suffer are not the result of competition, but of 
the absence of competition. The objections to trusts 
and private monopolies are based precisely on the fact of 
the absence of competition^ which places the consumer 
in their power. If we think that one grocer is asking 
too high a price for flour or potatoes, we have the oppor- 
tunity to see if we can do better elsewhere ; and the 
efforts of several really competing persons to sell com- 
modities of the same kind to the same person will keep 
any one from deriving more than a legitimate profit on 
capital, and a fair remuneration for labor. Moreover^ 
the danger of loss of opportunity to make at least fair 
profits and fair wages tends to secure polite and atten- 
tive treatment. When, however, we do not like the 
price charged for gas, and believe that it is exorbitant, 
our only recourse, usually, is to stop the use of it. It is 
not merely that, but when we have every reason to be- 
lieve that we are charged with more gas than we actu- 
ally consume, we must submit to be robbed because the 
single gas company will otherwise shut off the supply, 
and any remedy for the sufferer is too difficult to be 
practically available. And how unceremonious, brusque, 
and even impudent are often the agents of private mo- 
nopolies! If competition is brutal, we must remember 
that its absence is monopoly, and the experience of his- 
tory pronounces private monopoly odious. 

What has socialism to substitute for competition as a 
force in production ? Upon what can it rely to keep in 
motion the wheels of industry, and to render progress 
continuous ? It would seem, apart from the necessities 
of life, which ordinary and indifferent service would 
give, that socialism must rely, on the one hand, on the 
greater opportunity for usefulness which superiority 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PRODUCTION. 227 

would bring with it, and on the other upon honor or 
social esteem. There can be no doubt that social esteem 
has been the most powerful motive which has animated 
the conduct of men in all times. The Greeks, to gain 
the highest honor in their games, would undergo long 
and continuous toil, and put forth their best powers, 
developed to their utmost. Not only did the one who 
achieved this highest honor receive an immense triumph, 
but his entire family also shared his glory. Men do not 
struggle more ardently now for millions of money than 
the Greeks did for the honors in their games ; and, so far 
as the material content of these honors was concerned, 
that consisted of a few leaves, — the wreath of wild 
olive ! In every college and university in the land, and 
indeed in all lands, one may see the force of social 
esteem, and this social esteem is not won by success m 
money-making. The atmosphere of universities in this 
and other lands is a democratic one, and he occupies the 
first place in the esteem of his fellows who is successful 
in the pursuit of knowledge. Even in so aristocratic a 
country as Germany, the careful observer says of the 
students in the university, ^^They meet upon terms of 
fraternal equality. A common devotion to knowledge, 
without destroying the distinctions of birth and fortune, 
yet creates above them a higher university, where the 
most intelligent and laborious take the first place." ^ 

Our industrial life, even at the present day, affords no 
exception to the rule that men are animated by the de- 
sire for social esteem. They toil for money because they 
believe that money brings social esteem with it, and in 
so far as money ceases to bring social esteem they cease 
to toil for it. When they have acquired it they part 
1 See Sidney \Yhitinaii's *' Imperial Germany." 



228 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

with it to acquire social esteem. We may see a man 
toiling and moiling for money, sacrificing his own higher 
faculties, oppressing his employees, and defrauding the 
public. We say of such a man that he loves money 
above everything else. But let us watch his career a 
little longer. He has acquired millions, and has led a 
mean, contemptible, and even miserly life ; but suddenly 
he purchases a fine mansion and spends a hundred thou- 
sand dollars for a grand entertainment. Money flows 
like water, and it seems, perhaps, that this millionaire is 
now governed by other motives. Not at all ; he sought 
money because he supposed that with it he could pur- 
chase social esteem. Either he had these personal 
expenditures in view from the start, or he finds that 
something more than mere possessions is necessary to 
give him the esteem which he desires. An English 
manufacturer acquires a great fortune, and then retires 
from the business which brought him his wealth to live 
upon a country estate. He voluntarily abandons the 
opportunity to gain great additional wealth, because he 
hopes that he will enjoy a higher social position as the 
owner of large landed estates. The German manufac- 
turer who has, through long self-denial, won a million, 
parts with a considerable portion of his fortune to marry 
his daughter to a lieutenant with sixpence a day, be- 
cause this lieutenant can give his daughter a higher 
social position, and he may bask in the reflected sun- 
shine of her glory. A familiar illustration is afforded 
by the servant-girl problem in the United States. Amer- 
ican girls prefer other occupations than domestic ser- 
vice, although they yield smaller pecuniary returns, 
because, rightly or wrongly, they suppose that these 
other O0i3upations carry with them a higher degree of 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PIlODUCTloy. 229 

social esteem ; and this supposition is so generally enter- 
tained that it produces a marked impression upon the 
labor market. 

Social esteem, then, is an abundantly sufficient motive. 
We must concede that frankly to the socialists. But we 
have to ask the question, whether that conduct which is 
socially beneficial would as a rule meet with social ap- 
probation ? Those who move among the educated and 
cultured will be readily inclined, perhaps, to give an af- 
firmative answer. One acquainted only Avith university 
life at its best, and judging the whole world by its stan- 
dards, would not be inclined to entertain serious doubts 
in regard to the line of conduct which would meet with 
general social approbation. We must remember, how- 
ever, that there are many different classes in society, and 
that each class has its own standards. 

The number of men who act in a manner which is dis- 
advantageous to society, is extremely large ; and perhaps 
one can scarcely be deemed guilty of pessimism, if one 
expresses the opinion that only a minority of men evince 
any genuine solicitude for the general welfare. Yet 
each one is animated by the desire for social esteem ; but 
it is the esteem of those about him, the esteem of his own 
class which governs his conduct. The thief belongs to 
a class that honors the successful thief ; and the daring 
and successful bank robber, who daily hazards his own 
life and freely takes the lives of others, is a hero of no 
small proportions to a very large class. A recent robber, 
who was shot while carrying out a daring plan of rob- 
bery, boasted that he did not want to be outdone by 
those notorious Missouri robbers, the James brothers. 
Men of this sort are so honored that accounts of their 
lives are written, and may be purchased at the book- 



230 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

stalls of many a railway station. The prize-fighter is 
animated by a desire for social esteem, and his conduct 
is that which meets with the approbation of a consider- 
able proportion of the entire American community. The 
most prominent newspapers in the country publish, not 
columns, but pages, describing the preparations for a 
prize-fight, and the fight itself, following it with minute 
account of the subsequent movements of the principal 
actors in the contest. The achievements of scholars and 
statesmen, so far as the press of the day is concerned, 
fade into insignificance when brought into contrast with 
the encounters of a champion pugilist. 

Tax-dodging and many other practices, which are di- 
rectly anti-social in character, are indulged in freely by 
those who stand high in the community, and who are not 
ashamed of their conduct in this respect. They do not, 
on account of their anti-social practices, lose the esteem 
of their fellows. 

When we call to mind all these facts, and many others 
which a little reflection will suggest to the reader, can 
we declare that under socialism we have reason to anti- 
cipate that regularly that line of conduct which is 
socially beneficial would meet with social approbation ? 
If we are obliged to answer the question in the negative, 
the cause of socialism is at least greatly weakened. 

We must examine this question of the motives which 
impel men to action from the psychological standpoint. 
We are not merely concerned with what would be in the 
true interests of men, but with their capacity to appre- 
ciate their social interests. We have learned during gen- 
erations to look at economic questions from the individual 
standpoint. Will it be easy for us to look at questions 
concerning our material interests from the social stand- 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF PUOLUCTION. 231 

point ? We do not now generally appreciate sufficiently 
the extent to which our material welfare depends upon 
""^society. Should we under socialism, when so much more 
depended upon society, appreciate sufficiently the impor- 
tance of right social conduct ? It is on the social side of 
man's nature that his development is slowest, and social- 
ism implies a high development of man — and a very 
high development of man — precisely on this side. A 
socialist writer himself has spoken of " the individualist 
blacks of Africa,'' by which he virtually admits that 
socialism is inconceivable among a people occupying so 
low a stage of civilization. But we have thousands and 
millions of people in the more civilized countries occupy- 
ing in social development a position not much higher. 
Most instructive are the lessons which Christianity 
teaches us. Christianity is a social religion, if it is any- 
thing. Its founder, a Jew, called himself not a son of 
Israel, but the Son of man, to identify himself with human- 
ity. He opposed the religious opinions and religious prac- 
tices of his day, on the ground that they placed some 
things above the duty which man owes to his fellows. 
Many a child thought, and still thinks, that it is more 
important to give to the church than to care for an aged 
father and mother. Christ told those who thought that a 
gift to the ohurch could justify one in neglecting to pro- 
vide for father and mother, that they made the word of 
God of no effect. When men came to John the Baptist, 
Christ's predecessor, inquiring the way of life, he enjoined 
upon them the observance of social duties ; and when men 
asked Christ what they should do to be saved, he likewise 
bade them to care for their fellows, telling one inquirer to 
sell all that he had and give to the poor, and telling an- 
other to follow the example of the good Samaritan. The 



232 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

crowning act in Christ's mission manifested the social 
side of Christianity, — he died for others. Yet while all 
this is true, it has taken the Christian Church centuries 
even to approximate the position of Christ with respect to 
the social nature of religion. Eeligion has been treated, 
and is still treated, as an individual question. Individ- 
ual salvation has been a common and powerful phrase, 
and it has not been accompanied by its complement, 
social salvation. We may still go into many a prayer- 
meeting, and listen to prayer after prayer and address 
after address, and hear not one word which would 
indicate that the speaker recognized the existence of 
any one else in all the universe outside himself and 
Almighty God. When at last the change begins, people 
commence to write books entitled " Social Christianity," 
and " The Philanthropy of God ; " but the titles them- 
selves have to many a strange and startling sound. 

Many other illustrations of the slow development of 
man on the social side might be instanced. One is 
afforded by ethics, which a great writer has declared 
to be the queen of the social sciences. Ethics has, 
however, been pursued chiefly as an individual science, 
and men are only beginning to understand that it is 
a social science. Must we not, in view of all these facts, 
reach the conclusion that there are limitations upon 
social action found in the backward state of develop- 
ment of man's social nature, and that men are still too 
individualistic in their nature to permit us to hope that 
for a long time to come they will be able to conform to 
the requirements of a socialistic state ? 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF DISTRIBUTION. 233 



CHAPTER yil. 

OBJECTIONS TO SOCIAUSM AS A SCHEME OP 
DISTRIBUTION AND OF CONSUMPTION. 

We have already learned that socialists wish to secure 
justice in distribution, but that they have not been able 
to agree upon a standard of distributive justice, although 
they now generally seem disposed to regard equality in 
distribution as desirable. 

Equality is unquestionably the simplest and easiest 
solution of the problem of distribution under socialism ; 
and it is frequently argued that it meets all the require- 
ments of distributive justice, because it is held that, es- 
sentially, one man has rights equal to those which any 
other enjoys. 

Socialism compels us to agree upon a standard of dis- 
tributive justice which would be generally acceptable, 
and which would enlist the services of the most gifted 
and talented members of the community. If we depart 
from the principle of equality, it is difficult in the ex- 
treme to establish any standard in accordance with fixed 
principles, calculated to settle controversy. Let us sup- 
pose we decide to distribute material goods in accordance 
with merit or service rendered. How shall we decide 
upon the value of different services when compared with 
one another ? That distribution which may be called 
ideal is one that leads to the maximum satisfaction of 
wants, — that is, distribution in accordance with needs. 
This means equal distribution among equals, but unequal 



234 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

distribution among those wlio are unequal; and, as a 
matter of fact, inequalities among men, in capacity and 
requirements, are immense. 

It is desirable to satisfy the most intense wants first, 
and then those less intense, and so on down the scale. If 
incomes were distributed equally, there are men whose 
wants are so limited that they would have more than 
enough for the satisfaction of every need, while others 
would be deprived of the means for the satisfaction of 
genuine and pressing wants. One person has no special 
intellectual gifts, and can soon acquire all the education 
which will be beneficial to him, so far, at any rate, as ed- 
ucation given in schools is concerned. Another has great 
gifts which fit him to become a painter, a musician, or an 
original scholar. It is in the interest of society that the 
faculties of such a one should be fully developed, and 
that for their development, the tools, implements, and 
opportunities, for the exercise of the talent, should be 
afforded. Yet the education which is required under 
such circumstances is often expensive, including foreign 
travel and study, after the school education at home is 
completed. Such a person can use advantageously a far 
larger income than the average mechanic or artisan. 

But how can we approximate this distribution under 
socialism ? How can we reach agreement in regard to 
needs ? Each one may appreciate his own needs suffi- 
ciently, but will he appreciate the needs of others, es- 
pecially of those who are his natural superiors, and who 
require ten times as much as he does ? Will the ordinary 
farmer or industrial toiler cheerfully agree to the propo- 
sition that some one else needs ten times as much as he 
does, in order to give equal satisfaction of wants ? Un- 
less such is the case, we shall have dissatisfaction and 
discontent, likely to impair the usefulness of socialism. 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF DISTRIBUTION, 235 

And this is not all. While it may be difficult for us to 
come to an agreement in regard to the differences in the 
value of services rendered by various members of the 
community, a little careful observation shows us that 
the difference, after all, is vast. In many a town, we can 
find a single individual upon whom the prosperity of the 
town seems largely to depend. While he lives, the chief 
enterprises of the place in which he is the leader thrive ; 
but upon his death, mistake after mistake is made in 
management, and prosperity deserts the town. Every- 
thing else remains the same as before, but leadership is 
absent, and that makes the difference between prosperity 
and failure. We may take a single industrial establish- 
ment and we shall find that, while under one man it 
thrives, under another it languishes. The question of 
success is dependent, above everything else, upon right 
leadership. Kow, those who have superior gifts and ca- 
pacities are generally well aware of their superiority. 
They know that they render more valuable services than 
others ; and if we take men as they are now, or as they 
are likely to be for a long time, we have every reason to 
believe that an assignment of merely equal income would 
not enlist in socialistic production the most capable mem- 
bers of the community, in such a manner that they would 
give their best energies to the socialistic state ; but un- 
less we could secure from the most talented members of 
the community willing service, socialism would inevitably 
prove a serious failure. The poor organization and man- 
agement of the productive forces of society would lead to 
'far greater waste than that which we experience at the 
present time. It is much to be feared that men cannot 
be socialized to that extent that they will generally ac- 
cept the principle of equal reward for their services, 



236 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

even could it be shown that it were desirable. And it 
is impossible to show this, for quite the contrary is true. 

It is urged that in the family we see what ethical re- 
quirements are, and we should blame a father who, at his 
table, gave the best food to the strong, and inferior food 
to the feeble, clothed the most capable children in fine 
clothing, and allowed those who were so unfortunate as 
to be cripples to go in rags. Such discrimination would 
shock our consciences. The children of the family may 
render unequally valuable services, but that cannot jus- 
tify the inequality in reward ; yet this is only a part of 
the problem of the distribution of income. When it 
comes to the question of the use of material resources for 
the development of faculties, we feel that the father is 
justified in spending far more on the son who has the 
larger faculties to be developed. If his means are lim- 
ited, he may keep the feebler son at home, and send the 
other son away to an academy, college, and university, 
and finally to travel in foreign lands, spending ten times 
as much upon him as the other. This is ethically justifi- 
able ; but on the other hand, we admit that the son who 
receives this far larger share of the family income must 
see to it that he uses these developed faculties for the in- 
terest of the weaker brother as well as his own. Other- 
wise he fails in meeting the requirements of ethics. 

Similarly, it is quite proper that various members of 
society should consume large quantities of economic 
goods, even when others lack some of the necessities of 
life, because it is demanded for the sake of the higher 
interests of society. But those who have been favored 
must remember that they have been favored, and use all 
their faculties and resources for the good of society as 
a whole. Here we draw a line between that consumption 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF DISTRIBUTION. 237 

of goods which ministers to development in any form, 
and that consumption which serves simply to gratify 
vanity, or which merely promotes sensual enjoyment. 
Luxury stands condemned. 

All this brings us to the observation that there is great 
danger that, under socialism, the true requirements of 
those engaged in the higher pursuits would be under- 
estimated, and that the importance of those occupations 
which contribute most to the advancement of civiliza- 
tion would fail to secure adequate appreciation. The 
extent of natural inequalities, and the differences in the 
requirements of men, are not understood by the masses 
of mankind ; and it is extremely difficult, if not impossi- 
ble, to make them understand these inequalities and dif- 
ferences. This being the case, we have every reason to 
apprehend that, under socialism, there would be inade- 
quate provision by the masses for those who carry forward 
the most important work ; that is to say, those whose pro- 
ducts are immaterial, ministering to the higher parts of 
our nature. If this is so, the result of socialism would be 
a non-progressive society, and in consequence all would 
finally suffer, because, under a satisfactory social organ- 
ization, every class will sooner or later share, to a cer- 
tain extent, in the advantages resulting from progress in 
science, art, letters, religion. 

Abundant illustrations of this danger are afforded by 
existing society. It is generally proposed, in fact almost 
universally proposed, that socialism should be organized 
as democracy ; but it has been the precise weakness of 
democracy, that it has failed to appreciate the best 
things, and has been unwilling to grant public money 
to promote undertakings which do not imply material 
gain. Democracy has been inclined to raise wages, and 



238 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

for this we must praise it ; but it has also been inclined 
to give low salaries, and for this we must condemn it ; 
because salaries, as distinguished from wages, represent 
the remuneration for talent and special qualifications. 
Those who receive the salaries are engaged in occupations 
which cannot be neglected, if civilization is to continue its 
progress. We have already cited the course of the Lon- 
don County Council as an illustration of the strength of 
socialism, but it illustrates also its weakness. Mr. Fred- 
eric Harrison, who has praised this council highly, is 
also obliged to say, "Unfortunately, the zeal of the 
majority to raise the wages of the laborer has been too 
often accompanied by an equal zeal to reduce the sala- 
ries of the higher professional skill. . . . But it marks 
the economic zeal of a new public-spirited body, that it 
listens to John Burns telling it, ^that the man does 
not live who is worth a salary of five hundred pounds 
a year.' " ^ 

Elsewhere we are told that there are not a score of 
men in the service of the English municipalities who re- 
ceive salaries of a thousand pounds a year; and that 
those representing the new democracy in England are 
insisting that two hundred and fifty pounds a year shall 
be the maximum salary for municipal officials, regardless 
of their qualifications or responsibilities.^ The United 

1 A prominent member of the Fabian Society sends the author the 
foUowing comment upon the above passage: *'May I say that your ^ 
reference to the London County Council salaries is misleading. It is 
true that Burns did let slip in the heat of debate the unhappy phrase 
you quote. But his action has been much more sensible. And no 
one would gather from your statement that the London County Coun- 
cil pays no fewer than forty-seven of its officials over £500 a year, 
twenty of them getting £1,000 or over- — no bad sums according to the 
English scale." 

2 " Labor Politics in a New Place," by Edward Porritt in the 
North American Review ^ March, 1894, 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF DISTRIBUTION. 239 

States is also, in its entire history, proof and illustration 
of this tendency in democracy. Our various American 
governments have always paid wages which have given an 
upward tendency to the labor market, — wages, in fact, 
above rather than below those paid by private employers 
under similar circumstances ; but our governments, na- 
tional, State, and municipal, as a rule, pursue a mean and 
socially unfortunate policy with respect to salaries ; so 
that a man with high qualifications rarely has an oppor- 
tunity to serve his country in public office, whether elec- 
tive or appointive, without making a sacrifice so great 
that many, who would otherwise confer benefit upon the 
community in public office, refuse to bear the burden. 

At the present time we are not dependent exclusively 
upon what the democracy will do for us. After we have 
secured from government all that we can to promote art 
and letters, and the higher interests of society generally, 
we can appeal to those who in private industry have won 
large resources to supply the deficiencies in the public 
service. Private individuals are also able to take the 
initiative, by their contributions, to educate the public up 
to a point where they will do more than they are now 
doing, to promote the best interests of society. A con- 
crete instance will best illustrate the point. A wealthy 
woman in Boston, feeling the importance of sewing, 
cooking, and other industrial features in the public 
school system, which the educational authorities were 
unwilling to support, defrayed the expenses out of her 
own pocket, until the public became educated up to an 
appreciation of the new features in the public schools, 
and became willing to support them by taxation. 

Similarly, a State university is not now dependent ex- 
clusively upon what a legislature will see fit to appropriate 



240 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

for it ; but it can appeal to private individuals to supple- 
ment public appropriations, to raise salaries if they are 
inadequate for the best work on the part of the profes- 
sors, to provide more abundantly books and apparatus, 
and especially to endow those departments the impor- 
tance of which is not generally sufficiently appreciated. 

Classical philology might be cited as an instance. An 
American legislature rarely appreciates the importance 
of classical studies ; but a right-minded man of wealth, 
knowing their value, might give them a firm founda- 
tion in a State university by adequate endowment. It 
would seem, then, that we shall achieve better results if 
we have the possibility of a co-operation of individual 
effort with the public effort, than if we rely exclusively, 
upon what the public, as such, is willing to do; for it 
must be borne in mind that socialism, even if moderate 
and conservative, would ultimately reduce incomes to 
such an extent that no one person could do very much 
out of his own resources to carry forward the work of 
society. 

What we need everywhere in modern society, and 
especially in the United States, is a natural aristocracy, 
by which we mean an aristocracy of merit. Provision 
may conceivably be made for a true aristocracy in the 
structure of government itself. Such is to some extent 
the case in countries like England and Germany, al- 
though in both countries the so-called aristocracy is 
largely based upon artificial distinctions, and has no real 
foundations in superiority of talent or services. Never- 
theless, we do find that, on the whole, in these countries, 
and especially in Germany, those who have control of 
government show considerable appreciation of the higher 
goods of life. They know the value of art, of letters, of 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF DISTRIBUTION. 241 

tlie highest education, and are well aware of the fact 
that public expenditure for the encouragement of the 
higher fruits of civilization yields large return to the 
tax-payer. The public authorities of Germany know 
the importance, for example, of investigation in universi- 
ties, and understand that quality in work means more 
than quantity. They know also how essential it is to 
work of the best sort, that professors should enjoy free- 
dom in instruction and research, and also permanent 
positions with assured income. 

This merely offers one illustration of many which 
might be adduced. Now, the point which we mus* bear 
in mind is this : If the structure of government itself 
does not furnish scope for a true aristocracy, then a 
place outside the government must be found to give to 
true aristocracy opportunity to exercise the beneficent 
influence which belongs to it. And we must not by any 
means underrate that cultivation of the finer forms and 
graces of life which is one part of the functions of a 
true aristocracy. We must only insist that those who 
have great social opportunities should not use them 
selfishly, but generously for the public weal. 

A wise truth for the guidance of society was offered 
by Christ in these words, '^ For unto whomsoever much 
is given, of him much will be required : and to whom 
men have committed much, of him they will ask the 
more.'^ ^ 

All this is naturally opposed to a false and most per- 
nicious doctrine of equality. A full recognition of the 
actual and, indeed, marvellous inequalities among men, in 
their natural capacities as well as requirements, must 
tend to mitigate the hardships and injustice which are 

1 St. Luke xii. 48. 



242 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

apt to accompany actual inequalities. If all men claim 
that they are naturally equal, then the logical conclusion 
is that they should be all treated equally. But as a well- 
known jurist has said: ^^ Nothing can be more unequal 
than the equal treatment of unequals." ^ The result of 
a failure to recognize natural inequalities is seen in those 
judicial decisions which break down beneficent labor 
legislation on the ground that it interferes with free con- 
tract. It is assumed that the feeble, and perhaps half 
starved, working girl, occupies a position of substantial 
equality with her powerful millionaire employer, and 
that she is able to guard her own interests in labor 
contracts. 

The law of population is regarded by many as a fatal 
objection to socialism. It is generally held that guaran- 
teed incomes, and assured support for one's family as well 
as one's self, would lead to an excessive growth of popu- 
lation from which all would suffer. At the present time, 
the very conditions of life impose restrictions upon the 
growth of population. What, under socialism, would 
take the place of these conditions, which are often very 
hard? Experience shows that under, favorable circum- 
stances population is capable of doubling itself at least 
once in twenty-five years ; and this would lead to an over- 
population of the world in a very short time, and in a few 
centuries would fill the world with so many people that 
there would not be standing-room for any more. 

It is easy to say that the increase of population brings 
new hands and consequently additional productive power, 

* **Man weiss eben heute, dass es keine grossere Ungleichheit 
gibt, als das Ungleiche gleich zubehandeln." Prof. Anton Menger 
in *' Das biirgerliche Recht und die besitzlosen Volksklassen,'* Archiv 
fur soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik, Bd. II. § 20. 



SOCIALISM AS A SCHEME OF DISTRIBUTION. 243 

but it is only up to a certain point that additional labor 
power increases production proportionately. 

Much may be said about this principle of population, 
and certain contrary tendencies, which, it is alleged, make 
the fear of over-population groundless. Certain authors 
assert that, as men develop intellectually, the rate of 
population tends to decrease. Others claim that it is the 
wretched and miserable who add most recklessly to the 
present population, and that material prosperity, in itself, 
checks the growth of population. Still others suggest 
artificial remedies. It is also urged that public opinion 
would be an adequate restraining force. It must be said 
that the principle of population has not yet been suffi- 
ciently discussed, and that we are still much in the dark 
in regard to the possibilities which it carries with it, 
under this or that social system. 

Certainly there is more than room on the earth for all 
who now live upon it; and were society well organized, 
the population might increase rapidly for some time 
without disaster. On the other hand, we cannot, in our 
plans of social reconstruction, safely neglect the dangers 
and disadvantages of an excessively large population.^ 

1 Cf . " Die Stellung der Sozialisten zur Malthus'schen Bevolker- 
ungslehre," by Heinrich Soetbeer, and "The Evolution of Sex," by 
Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson, chap. xx. 



244 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 



CHAPTER YIII. 
OTHEB OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 

We have now considered the most serious objections 
to socialism ; and chief among these are the tendencies 
to revolutionary dissatisfaction which it would be likely 
to carry with it ; the difficulties in the way of the organ- 
ization of several important factors of production under 
socialism^ notably agriculture ; difficulties in the way of 
determining any standard of distributive justice that 
would be generally acceptable, and at the same time 
would enlist the whole-hearted services of the most 
gifted and talented members of the community; and 
finally, the danger that the requirements of those per- 
sons engaged in higher pursuits would be under-esti- 
mated, and the importance of those occupations which 
contribute most to the advancement of civilization should 
fail to secure adequate appreciation. These we should 
call the four main weaknesses of socialism. If socialism 
could overcome the difficulties which have already been 
mentioned, perhaps a multitude of others could also be 
satisfactorily surmounted. Socialists are not, we must 
confess, altogether wrong in their position that they 
cannot be expected to solve in advance all the difficult 
problems of a new society, and that it will be time to 
meet difficulties when they arise. It is true that if wo 
are persuaded in regard to the main features of social- 
ism, we can make the claim that we can only be required 
to meet the problems which immediately present them^ 



OTHER OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM. 245 

selves, and can adopt as a watchword, " The next 
thing ! '^ We cannot, however, call ourselves socialists, 
and take measures to bring about socialism, unless we 
have reached conviction in regard to the desirability of 
socialism in its essential features and the possibility of 
overcoming the chief and fundamental difficulties which 
stand in the way of this new contemplated social order. 

Attention, however, will be briefly called to a few 
other difficulties and objections of importance. One is 
the maintenance of an equilibrium between supply and 
demand. Quite generally socialists have held to the doc- 
trine that value depends upon labor, and is measured by 
what is called ^^ socially necessary labor-time.'' This 
means that the value of an article depends upon the 
time which it requires the average workman, using mod- 
ern machinery and industrial methods, to produce it. 
What is the value of a yard of woollen cloth ? We 
ascertain the number of yards, which, say, ten thousand 
men can produce, working with due diligence, and using 
the best appliances and methods. If we divide this num- 
ber of yards by ten thousand, we shall find the share of 
the product which must be credited to each man. The 
value of these yards will be " one day " ; for that is the 
socially necessary time required for their production. 
This does not hold as a law of value at the present time, 
for it fails to take account of monopolistic elements 
found everywhere in production ; and it could not hold 
under socialism, for it would not maintain an equilib- 
rium between supply and demand. The reasons why 
such a law of value would not be practicable under so- 
cialism, any more than at present, are numerous, and 
only one or two can be mentioned. The articles for con- 
sumption find their value in desire, and, we may say, to 



246 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

speak more accurately, unsatisfied desire.^ We desire 
the satisfaction of some want as yet unsatisfied, and the 
intensity of the desire determines what we will give for 
the article which is able to satisfy the want. Now, 
the strength of the desire cannot be entirely dependent 
upon socially necessary labor-time. We may take two 
kinds of wine : both have required the same quantity of 
labor for their production ; but one has grown on a rare 
and unusual site, and the other one on a good average 
piece of land for the production of wine grapes. The 
bottle of the one has a value, we will say, of five dollars, 
and the other of one dollar. These differences in value 
cannot be explained by private property in land, but are 
due to the natural limitation of land of the best kind for 
the production of wine. Should socialists in the social- 
istic state fix the same price upon one which they did 
upon the other, the supply of the first kind would be im- 
mediately exhausted by a general scramble for it, while 
the second kind would be neglected until the first had 
been exhausted. Probably many of those receiving the 
better kind would offer it for sale at a higher valuation, 
and thus receive that unearned increment which now 
goes to the land-owner. On account of varieties in soil, 
other agricultural products serve equally as illustration. 
The same would hold true with mineral products. Other 
reasons why a stable equilibrium between demand and 
supply could not be secured under the operation of 
the law of value, determined by a socially necessary 
labor-time, is the capricious and uncertain nature of 
human wants. It can never be possible to anticipate 
these with perfect accuracy. If values depended simply 
upon labor-time, we should have frequently redundant 
1 Cf. Ely's ** Outlines of Economics," Part II., chap. i. 



OTHER OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM. 247 

supplies of articles of some kinds, of which it would per- 
haps be impossible ever to dispose, and frequent deficien- 
cies of other kinds. It would be necessary for socialists 
to regulate value more in accordance with the laws which 
actually obtain in society, raising and lowering price in 
such manner as to keep an equilibrium between supply 
and demand. This would be likely to result in a surplus 
.above costs of production, corresponding in some degree 
to present unearned income. This does not suggest an 
insuperable obstacle if socialism is otherwise practicable, 
because this surplus could be used for public purposes. 
It does, however, overthrow a great deal of current so- 
cialism, even if it does not attack the essence of socialism. 

Ordinarily, there goes with the doctrine of value just 
described, the proposal to abolish money and substitute 
therefor labor checks, certifying the amount of labor 
time. What has been said seems to show that this sub- 
stitute for money would scarcely be practicable, and it 
raises the question what could take the place of money ? 
The most natural and easiest method would, perhaps, be 
to continue our present monetary system, and simply 
attempt to improve it. The abolition of money is no 
mecessar}^ part of a conservative socialism, and the de- 
mand for this abolition may have arisen from a fanatical 
desire for equality. Of course money would make possi- 
ble certain inequalities in wealth ; but with the great in- 
struments of production socially owned and operated, 
these would be sufficiently limited to satisfy conserva- 
tively inclined socialists 

Anotlier difficulty under socialism would be the distri- 
bution of labor forces in such manner that production 
might be developed in harmonious proportions. How 
shall the men and women of society be allotted to 



248 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

their several spheres ? The difficulty is immense. Mr. 
Bellamy has proposed to equalize various occupations 
in attractiveness, hoping, thereby, that naturally and 
spontaneously each one would find his proper place in 
industrial society. If a certain ptirsuit is especially disa- 
greeable, and the number offering themselves for the pur- 
suit is insufficient, he holds that the length of the labor 
day should be shortened, and thus the pursuit be ren- 
dered more attractive. Should, however, the number of-^ 
fering themselves for any one occupation be larger than 
required to satisfy the demand for the services or com- 
modities produced by those engaged in that occupation, 
he holds that the working day should be lengthened, and 
thus the occupation rendered less attractive. When we 
contemplate the various occupations which are necessary, 
it would hardly seem that equality could in this manner 
be secured. Could we thus equalize the supply with 
demand in the learned professions ? What extension 
of the work of university professors would bring down 
the supply to such an extent that it would equalize the 
demand for professorships ? How could the supply of 
the highest positions in the socialistic state be equalized 
with demand, by changing the length of the working 
day ? To ask the question is to answer it. Many occu- 
pations now require, and should under any system re- 
quire, if they are to be carried on satisfactorily, the 
full strength and time of those who are engaged in them. 
Moreover, the interests of society demand that there 
should not be a free selection of occupations, so far as 
the most influential and desirable positions are con- 
cerned, but those should have these positions who are 
best fitted to fill them. It would seem that it would be 
necessary to proceed more in accordance with the prin- 



OTHER OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM. 249 

ciples which now govern selection of public servants, 
where the civil service has attained a condition of excel- 
lence ; and this means inequalities in reward and selection 
of men, on the basis of natural talents and acquisitions. 
It would require a certain amount of compulsion of an 
economic nature, but very likely a less degree than that 
which exists in the economic world at present. Look 
at it as we will, we encounter difficulties. 

Finally, we may call attention to certain objections- 
which do not apply to socialism in itself, but which 
do apply to the ordinary socialistic mode of agitation. 
While socialistic agitation has had a beneficent influence 
in drawing the wage-earning classes together, and creat- 
ing among them a feeling of fraternal solidarity, it has, 
on the other hand, tended to separate them from other 
classes in society, depriving them of the help which tliey 
could derive from these other classes, and giving them 
an unwarranted confidence in their capacity for political 
and industrial leadership. This has been the inevitable 
outcome of the Marxist socialism, which treats socialism 
as a class problem, telling the workers that their emanci- 
pation must come entirely from their own efforts, and 
employing the war-cry, ^^ Workmen of all countries, 
unite!" Socialism will become stronger when it loses 
its class character and looks for leadership to men of 
superior intelligence and wide experience. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 

SUGGESTIONS FOK SOCIAL REFORM. 

We have now examined briefly the nature of socialism 
and have discussed its strong features as well as its 
weaknesses. It remains to answer the question, Wliat 
suggestions for social reform may we gather from our 
investigation of the claims of socialism ? It would be 
strange indeed if a social system which has so large and 
enthusiastic a body of believers, many of them men of 
character and capacity, did not have in it important ele- 
ments of truth. The men who have given their adhesion 
to socialism cannot be altogether mistaken ; for we must 
bear in mind that socialism is no temporary delusion 
which has carried even wise men off their feet for a 
moment, but that it is a system of social thought which 
has increased in strength during the past generation, and 
that continued criticisms of the keenest minds have not 
been able to prevent it from gaining increasing hold 
upon the masses. We have observed, however, that 
socialism has been relatively weak where its claims have 
been examined calmly and impartially, and especially 
where a readiness has been manifested to receive all the 
elements of truth which it contains. 

Socialism, it is now generally admitted by impartial 
students, has shown the existence of serious evils. Ee- 
cently, indeed, we have been told by Professor Small, of 
the University of Chicago, that socialism is substantially 
correct in its critique. Even if we do not go so far as 



254 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

thiS; we must in our efforts for social reform take into 
account the criticisms of present industrial society which 
socialism has presented so forcibly. But there is one 
important thought which occurs in this connection. 
Socialism as presented by Marx and Engels gives us an 
evolutionary theory of society which shows us the growth 
of evils which it is claimed will at last become intolerable 
and will lead to the destruction of our present industrial 
order. This evolutionary theory of society^ however, 
assumes a relatively passive attitude of men in the face 
of industrial evils. Marx and Engels showed fifty years 
ago what would be the outcome of social evolution in 
England, provided men followed a passive policy, letting 
things take their own course. Engels in particular pre- 
dicted a development of industrial society in England, 
things going from bad to worse, which has not been sub- 
stantiated by subsequent experience. The reason was 
that the best minds and hearts of England were not 
content to let things take their own course. On the con- 
trary, they set about to effect an improvement of indus- 
trial and social conditions, and the result has been won- 
derful progress along every line. Crime has diminished, 
pauperism has decreased, the housing of the poorer 
classes has been improved, educational opportunities 
have had axi astounding growth and have been brought 
within reach of the entire English population, laws have 
been passed affording protection to labor against many 
abuses, the laws repressing and restraining combinations 
of working men have been almost altogether removed, 
increased wages have afforded greater comforts to the 
masses, and some little progress at least has been made 
in the solution of the monopoly problem, while taxation 
has been marvellously changed and that in the direction 



SUGGESTIONS FOB SOCIAL REFORM. 255 

of equality and justice. Much remains to be accom- 
plished, and when we think of what remains we may 
feel that only a beginning has been made ; but this 
beginning, certainly a large beginning, affords valuable 
suggestions for social reform. The conclusion, from the 
experience not only of England, but other countries also, 
seems to be this : If we allow things to take their own 
course, if we remain passive in the presence of the evils 
which socialism has so amply demonstrated and vividly 
depicted, the result may well be that outcome which the 
evolutionary socialism of Marx has pointed out. But 
there is no reason why we should remain passive in the 
presence of evils. On the contrary, there is every reason 
why we should vigorously attack existing evils, and do 
so with the hope that they can be abated and improve- 
ments in social conditions can be effected. 

It is not alone with respect to its criticism of our 
present industrial order that we must take socialism as a 
starting point in our constructive efforts for social ameli- 
oration. High ideals for the masses have been estab- 
lished by socialism, and that once for all. We must en- 
deavor, if our efforts are to be permanently successful, to 
realize high ideals for our social order, and accept no 
limits to improvement except those imposed by the con- 
ditions of our social coexistence. 

Another valuable suggestion offered by socialism is 
the superiority of prevention to cure. An older ideal is 
brought before us by the benevolent man in novels written 
fifty years ago. Eugene Sue's ^^ Mysteries of Paris " af- 
fords an illustration. The hero relieves distress which 
fA,lls under his observation, and while the book is full of 
generous sentiment, no higher ideal seems to be clearly 
presented by it than that of abounding charity. Social- 



256 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

ism has made it quite plain that the great problem is to 
prevent distress, and the experience of the past fifty 
years has shown that while we can never reach our ideal 
in this direction we can make large and continuous prog- 
ress. It is doubtless as a result in part of socialistic 
criticism that we are less inclined than formerly to boast 
of large sums given in alms, or of the provision made for 
the relief of distress. We are now more inclined to in- 
quire whether or not this need for alms and asylums 
could not have been in large measure obviated. We 
admit that- it is all very well to furnish wooden limbs to 
those who have lost their arms and legs in the railway 
service, but we think it is far better to enforce upon rail- 
ways those well-known measures which will prevent 
accidents to railway employees. 

If space permitted it would be desirable to take up the 
suggestions for social reform which we may derive from 
socialism, and apply these suggestions separately to pro- 
duction, to distribution, and to consumption. As it is, 
however, we can throw out only a thought concerning 
each one of these departments of our economic life. 

As far as production is concerned we may say that 
socialism suggests that the wastes of the competitive order 
may be greatly diminished ; also that the productive re. 
sources of society may be more largely utilized than at 
present. 

Perhaps the most all-embracing ideal of socialism, as 
far as distribution of wealth is concerned, is expressed in 
the formula of Louis Blanc : '^From each one according 
to his faculties ; to each one according to his needs." * 
It has never been shown how this ideal could be fully 
realized, and it seems that under socialism it would be 

^ Cf . Ely's ^* French and German Socialism," pages 121-122. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR SOCIAL REFORM. 257 

especially difficult to realize it. We have pointed out 
difficulties along this line in our examination of the 
weaknesses of socialism. We may, however, keep it be- 
fore us even while we adhere to our present social order, 
and we may seek to press forward continuously in the 
direction of this ideal. When we say this we are giving 
voice to no Utopian aspirations, but are simply describ- 
ing the general trend of many movements now actually 
in progress. What else than this do the educational 
movements of our day signify ? When we consider all 
these multiplied educational facilities for the develop- 
ment of body, mind, and spirit, do we not find that they 
are operating to put each one in that place in society in 
which he may serve society in accordance with his 
capacities ? Far enough away are we from fully reach- 
ing this ideal ; but if we take the view that all progress 
must be a gradual growth, we may feel encouraged to 
press forward along the best existing lines. And when 
we take into account what public libraries, public galler- 
ies and museums, public places for recreation are doing, 
we must acknowledge that some things are furnished to 
us in accordance with our needs. When to all these 
considerations we add the influence of the tendencies 
revealed by taxation, especially of bequests and inheri- 
tances, we shall acknowledge that along other lines we 
are making progress in the direction of equality of oppor- 
tunities ; and equality of opportunities in turn operates 
to assign to members of the community work according 
to their capacities, and to grant them a reward in ac- 
cordance with their needs. 

The monopoly problem has to be considered in this 
connection as well as in connection with the problem of 
production. As far as private monopoly exists it stands 



258 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

in the way of our ideal, and as far as we make progress 
in the solution of the monopoly problem we are approach- 
ing our ideal. 

Socialism also has suggestions with respect to con- 
sumption. We can take the best that socialism has to 
offer and endeavor to incorporate that into the present 
social order. The ideal of consumption is simplicity 
and private frugality, consumption which ministers to 
the higher rather than the lower needs, generous expen- 
diture for those things which we enjoy in common, and 
for dignity and beauty in public life. The magnificent 
Congressional Library building in Washington, which 
belongs to the entire nation, is an illustration of wise 
consumption. 

Socialism is essentially a theory of monopoly, and it 
is especially fruitful in suggestions for those undertak- 
ings which are monopolies. In fact, we may say that in 
the main socialism is sound for monopolistic undertak- 
ings. The suggestion, then, which socialism offers as far 
as monopoly is concerned is to examine the field of 
monopoly and to separate it out from the field of com- 
petitive industries. The best tendencies of thought at 
the present day seem to favor the view that there is a 
field of industry in which competition is ruled out and 
in which attempts to introduce competition work only 
disaster, whereas there is a field in which the competi- 
tive order produces the best results. It must not be 
understood that the socialistic method, or perhaps rather 
the method which socialism suggests with respect to the 
management of monopolies, will prove to be free from 
evils and difficulties. It is simply stated that the diffi- 
culties will be less under collective ownership and man- 
agement than under private ownership and management. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR SOCIAL REFORM, 259 

Private ownership and management are appropriate for 
the competitive field, but evils will still remain after we 
have done our best to reduce them to the lowest terms. 
The claim is that the difficulties and evils of private 
industry in the competitive sphere will be far less than 
would be the evils attendant upon collective ownership 
and management of industry in this sphere. 

What, then, is the field of monopoly, and what is the 
field of private industry ? The author presents here- 
with a new classification of monopoly which will prove 
suggestive in this connection, although it is necessary 
to refer the reader to other works for a fuller discus- 
sion of his views on this subject, inasmuch as it is 
quite impossible, in the page or two at his disposal, to 
offer proofs of the position assumed in the discussion of 
monopoly.^ 

Monopolies are : 

A. Social (or Artificial). 

B. Natural. 

The Social Monopolies may be subdivided thus : 
I. General Welfare Monopolies : 

1. Patents. 

2. Copyrights. 

3. Public Consumption Monopolies. 

4. Trade-marks. ^ 

5. Fiscal Monopolies. 

^ A further discussion will be found in July's ^' Outlines of 
Economics" (College edition) ; in ^^ Socialism and Social Reform," 
identical with the present work, except tliat this part on '^ Social 
Reform " is there further ehiborated ; and in the author's articles 
in the magazine ^^ Progress " of Chicago, November and Decem- 
ber, 1898. 



260 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM, 

II. Special Privilege Monopolies : 

1. Government (or Public) Favoritism. 

2. Private Favoritism. 

Natural Monopolies are : 

1. Those arising from limited supply of raw mate- 
rial. 

2. Those arising from properties inherent in the 
business. 

Patents and copyrights are temporarily monopolies 
conferred upon private individuals as a reward for ser- 
vices, and it is held that in these cases the advantages 
outweigh the disadvantages. All that is desired, as far 
as they are concerned, is to develop the laws regulating 
these monopolies in such a way as to protect adequately 
both private and public rights. Public consumption 
monopolies refer to such monopolies as the monopoly in 
alcoholic liquors established in Switzerland and the mo- 
nopoly in the retail trade in intoxicating beverages estab- 
lished in South Carolina. These are, as their term 
implies, designed to promote wholesale consumption or 
to limit deleterious consumption. Trade-marks are of 
minor significance. Fiscal monopolies are public mo- 
nopolies established in the interest of the treasury. The 
governmental monopoly of the tobacco business in France 
affords an illustration. It is simply one method of rais- 
ing public revenue, and need not detain us. The special 
privilege monopolies are abuses. If at any time a mo- 
nopoly is established through governmental policy, for 
example, by a bad sort of protective tariff, the remedy 
suggests itself. Private favoritism is a more prolific 
cause of monopoly at the present time. Monopolies 
founded upon and developed by special railway rates or 



SUGGESTIONS FOR SOCIAL REFORM. 261 

S[)ecial favors of any sort from railways afford an illus- 
tration. 

The natural monopolies are those with which we are 
especially concerned at the present time, and here the 
general rule is public ownership and management. We 
have reference to railways, telegraphs and telephones, 
and municipal monopolies such as street cars, water- 
works, and lighting works. 

The governmental unit appropriate for ownership and 
management must vary in accordance with the nature of 
the monopoly. In the case of railways it would natu- 
rally be the nation; in the case of lighting works the 
city. In the case of some enterprises the appropriate 
unit for operation and management is the commonwealth 
standing between the nation and the city. ^ 

It must be distinctly understood that the present 
chapter simply gives a sketch in rough outlines, and that 
all the qualifications which suggest themselves and 
which would be necessary to fill in the sketch have to 
be omitted on account of lack of space. When this is 
well understood it is believed that there need be no 
opportunity for serious misapprehension. With this 
understanding, certain advantages anticipated from the 
socialization of monopoly will be mentioned. 

It is anticipated that the socialization of monopoly 
would avoid the most serious wastes which at the pres- 
ent time are found in our industrial order ; that it would 
lead to better utilization of productive forces, and many 
irregularities in our economic life could thereby be 
avoided ; that a better distribution of wealth would nat- 
urally result therefrom, and that monopolies due to tlie 
favoritism of gigantic private undertakings could be 
obviated. It is held, furthermore, that all naturally pri- 



262 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM. 

vate businesses could be better developed under social 
control of monopolistic forces. In this way it is main- 
tained that the class of farmers, upon which our social 
order so largely rests, could be benefited. The interests 
of freedom, it is maintained, would be promoted by 
socialization of monopoly, inasmuch as the most serious 
menace to freedom at the present time comes from pri- 
vate monopoly which invades even our churches and 
institutions of learning. Furthermore, it is claimed that 
socialization of monopoly would tend to purification of 
politics, inasmuch as political corruption is so largely 
traceable in one way and another to private monopoly. 

We have left as appropriate fields for private business, 
agriculture, manufacture, and commerce. Here the prob- 
lem is to raise the level upon which these businesses are 
and may be conducted. The level of a private business 
is raised when injurious practices are prohibited for all 
alike engaged in it. As long as one manufacturer em- 
ploys child labor others may feel obliged to do so to 
hold their own in competition. If all alike are forbidden 
to employ child labor they may compete as heretofore. 
This general principle applies to all the laws for the 
protection of the wage-earning community, especially 
children, young persons, and women. It is in this spirit 
that such evils as the sweat-shop should be attacked. 
Here again we are giving voice to no Utopian aspirations, 
but are simply indicating the lines of most hopeful 
movements both in our own and in other countries. 

To inaugurate and carry out social and economic re- 
form various political reforms have been proposed. Of 
these the most promising are proportional representation 
and the initiative and referendum, together with that im- 
provement in administrative methods suggested by civil 



SUGGESTIONS FOU SOCIAL REFORM. 263 

service reform/ Each one of these reforms has its ap- 
propriate sphere, and each one has its able advocates. 

The contrast between the program of social reform 
given in the present work and that offered by the advo- 
cates of panaceas is most marked. The reformer, who 
has his one remedy for all social evils, will have little 
patience with what he will regard as patchwork. He 
wishes us to go to the root of things and to reshape 
entirely some one great institution, claiming that then 
everything in the social world will be all that could be 
desired. At the same time the advocate of a single 
reform, whether this be ^'free trade " or "single tax " or 
"land nationalization,'' has a position of vantage. He 
elaborates his reform in all its details, and concentrates 
attention upon that. Attention is divided, in the pro- 
gram of social reform presented in this work, among a 
multiplicity of reforms ; and this may at first be thought 
a weakness, but careful reflection will show that it 
corresponds to the complexity of modern civilization. 

Reforms must come from many different sources, and 
of thousands of agencies of genuine reform and progress 
not one can be spared. No one person will be in a posi- 
tion to take up all of the reforms which have been ad- 
vocated and push them vigorously. One line of reform 
will interest one class of persons, and another line 
another class, and thus, working together more or less 
consciously, the progress of society will be secured. 
What has been advocated is an ideal, and not some- 
thing which can be speedily attained. Possibly this out- 
line of reform contains in itself a strong argument 

* On proportional representation and especially Professor Com- 
mons's work, published in Crowell's Library of Economics and 
Politics. 



264 SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL BEFORM. 

against socialism, although not intended to do so. It 
shows, indeed, how long is the way we must travel 
before we can accomplish those desirable changes within 
the framework of existing society which even now 
suggest themselves. 

One line of thought which has run through the entire 
treatment of practicable social reform is social solidarity. 
Men's interests are inextricably intertwined, and we shall 
never become truly prosperous so long as there is any 
class of the population materially and morally wretched. 
As a social body we can no more be in a sound condition 
while we have a submer,ged tenth, than a man can be 
whose arms or legs are suffering with a foul and corrupt- 
ing disease. Whether we will or not we must, in a man- 
ner, rejoice together and suffer together. The sooner the 
idea of social solidarity, which is not only a doctrine 
but a real fact, is recognized in all its ramifications, the 
better it will be for us. 



yo 



rjj 



